Two Wolves And A Moon
by Laura Wolf
Summary: History is changed, and a young werewolf who was acindently killed gets a second chance. Little does she know, her living will have a big effect on the future. Now Aeryn will find out her fate is innterwined with Lily,James,Sirius,Remus,and many more!
1. Intro and Base,

There was once a young witch, born the same year as James, Lily, Remus and Sirius, named Aeryn O'Connell, she lived in America though her parents were from europe. Her mother, Loren Patterson, who was raised and born in England, was an exceptionally talented muggle born, who studied wandmaking in the forests of western America. Her father, Michal O'Connell, was from an Irish blood traitor family, who did magical painting and photography for a living.

-

Now you may be asking yourself... what does this Aeryn have to do with James, Sirius and such? Just be patient and you will see.

-

When Aeryn was seven, a werewolf by the name of Lare Ragus, bit her. Ever since then her life was harder, and her parents had trouble trying to figure out what kind future she could have with such a condition. Then good news came, Loren's old Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore had been appointed headmaster at her old school, Hogwarts. Their family was thrilled because out of all the headmasters, Albus would be the most understanding of there position. Without delay the O'Connells sent a bird to Hogwarts to discus the problem.

They were in luck. Another family, the Lupins, had a son who was also a werewolf, and would be starting school the same year.

But before that fateful September day, one month to be exact, a terrible thing happened.

So they could be closer to Hogwarts, when their daughter went to school, the O'Connells decided to move to Wingslyburg, Britain, a small wizarding community near Godric's Hollow. Their little house was located on 5 Ironwand Street, behind them vast wild forests stretched out, so Aeryn could transform safely. Next door to them were Kennel Ronin, and his wife Mary, both muggle borns who held high positions in Magical Law Enforcement.

That day a one of the first Death Eaters, Lestrange had been planning a little fun for the Ronins. The Death Eaters weren't as big as they would soon become, but they had enough sources to easily find the location of their house. It was daytime when Lestrange left, both of his victims would be at work, so he would wait inside their house, wait until they got home and were unprepared.

With a loud pop, he apparited on the pathway between five and seven Ironwand Street, so as not to set off any alarms caused by apparition directly into the house. But Lestrange was suffering from hangover, causing him to forget which one it was. Luckily while he had been sober, he wrote down the address on a piece of paper, the only problem was, some of the Bansheewine had spilled on the parchment. The dark liquid made it hard to tell the address, so shrugging he headed to five Ironwand, the wrong house.

That day Aeryn's parents had left for work, leaving Aeryn at home, as always.

And that was when it happened, Lestrange burst into her house shooting killing curses as he walked in cackling. He stopped looking for the picture of Kennel and Mary, that his source had informed him would be in the entry hall, but the house was empty except for a young girl lying on the floor, she had tried to run but it was too late, Aeryn was dead. Shrugging Lestrange moved to the next, house, the Ronins, shooting a few killing curses to make sure no stupid little girls were there, before he went to find a place to hide.

-

And so from then on everything continued as Rowling would have had it. The marauders formed, Remus with the help of his friends, transformed on his own, and eventually Lily and James had Harry, who saved the world from Voldemort, much later in the future.

But would this have changed if one life, that of Aeryn O'Connell, had been spared? If Lestrange hadn't gotten drunk the night before, and spilled his Bansheewine all over the parchment, would things have been different?

-

That is my story.

* * *

(my ramblings)

Ohhh very dramtic! i just wanted to get a nice base down so i dont start chucking random crap and confuse peeps.

dontcha worry the next chapter will be a real story, and stuffs like that, yays!!

oh and disclaimer i dont realy own nuthin in the fanfic, i mean i might made up sum people but i'm not gunna go all leagal and stuff. Rowling is the genuis im just making sumthin out of it for myself and werewolf/remus luvers. yays Alphakirawolf for inspiring me : -3 woof woof

WOLF OUT!


	2. History Changed, Start of a Story

Aeryn O'Connell sat on the living room couch, in front of her house. She was starting to get tired, as the full moon approached, but at least after that was over she could finally go to school! Because of her special conditions, she would be coming a day early with the other werewolf, and Dumbledore would explain the security and such, for when they transformed.

Aeryn yawned leaning against the couch, Her head was on one armrest, while her leg hung over the other, knocking over some book, she was impressively tall for her age, five feet three inches, at elven. All around her on the wall were pictures and painting her father had done. Most of the pictures were of her old and beloved house in America. They had lived in the mountains of Washington, were there was the ocean, lakes and endless pine forests, combining to make a beautiful lush green landscape. She rubbed her eyes again, being a werewolf was so tiring sometimes even when the moon wasn't full.

Aeryn was tall, lean, and strong. She had bright ginger hair like her parents and electric blue eyes like her dad.

She loved making jokes and taking pictures with her dad. She also had a passion for Quidditch, but it was hard when you were tired often, and she doubted she would be let onto the team, for Hogwarts.

Just then as she begun to think about her school, there was a loud noise from next door.

Explosions went off shaking her house, through the window she could she flashes of green.

As she ran down to the emergency cellar she heard a blood curling scream… Her neighbor, Mary was dead. Only pausing to wish her husband luck Aeryn lifted up an old carpet the she opened a hatch. Under the hatch was a painting of a bored –looking gargoyle.

"Cia'll agos neart." Said Aeryn to the picture, it was the password and their family motto, meaning 'Reason and Power'.

For some reason the sounds were clearer from down in the cellar, probably an enchantment so you could hear the people if they tried to take over your house.

There was a hair raised cackle-fit from the house next door, drowning out the begging and pleading of the victim, Kennel.

Aeryn plugged her ears, cringing, as she heard another scream of pain, it was almost like reliving the time she had been attacked and bit, but she was listening to it happen and feeling the pain at the same time. She grabbed her shoulder, the place were she had been bit, massaging it.

There was a popping noise, Lestrange had left, but still Aeryn didn't feel safe enough to leave. Soon more people popped into the house next door, arguing and yelling. Ministry Officials.

One of them calmed the rest down, showing he was clearly in charge.

"I'll check for any people in the area." He said calmly, "Mudblock, Buttonson" take the care of the bodies, and Flarry contact relatives."

"And to think, the Ronins, would be here normally." one of them said glumly before doing what the calm-voice-in-charge had asked.

She heard the leader mutter a spell, and then she felt a weird sensation pass through like, some sort of shadow thing…

"Wait! Stop! Their's someone in the building next door!" the leader said hurriedly.

With out hesitation, there were four more popping noises, and the M.O.M Officials, apparited into the room shouting "Expelliarmus" as they came in.

Aeryn flinched as the spells hit her, knocking her back a little, but they were unable to unarm her, seeing she hadn't bought a wand yet.

"Halt!" said the largest one, the leader, who was darkskined and had a tooth earing, "She's just a little girl, probably the neighbor, doesn't even have a wand yet. But her parents will be here very soon, we just set of the alarm."

Just as he said that, there were two other pooping noises and Aeryn's parents apparited into the basement.

"What…?" her father questioned worriedly as he surveyed the room, four ministry officials were grimly sitting on the crates in the room, and Aeryn was on the floor looking scared to death.

"Aeryn!" gasped her mother as soon as she got her footing, and ran toward her daughter, hugging her.

"Hello Mr. O'Connell, I am Kingsly Shacklebolt from the British Ministry, your neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Ronin, were murdered not long ago. It is obvious, your daughter is not the criminal, but when he or sh—"

"He." corrected Aeryn; she knew it was a man.

"When he is found," continued Kingsly, the leader, "We may need her as a witness in the court of law."

Michal O'Connell nodded, and bent down to hug his wife and daughter, as the ministry left.

-*_*_*_*-

FIVE YEARS LATER.

Ever since the murder of her neighbors, Aeryn parents, despite all of Dumbledore's owls, decided to home school her in the art of magic. At first Aeryn didn't mind, it was for her own safety, not to mention it was easier on the full moon. It wasn't until sometime before her fifteenth birthday, she felt lonely for the first time.

She longed to socialize with someone her age, and she hated how her school needs robbed her parents of time to pursue there jobs and passions. After a week or so of persuading, Aeryn managed to get her parents to send an owl asking if she could join Hogwarts next year, into the fifth year.

Dumbledore was happy to oblige, he had been monitoring Aeryn's progress and he knew she was slightly above the average fourth year student, going into the fifth year next September would be fine.

* * *

(My ramblings)

I just would like to point out some facts

Aeryn's name is pronounced "Erin" just spelled differently

And similar to Remus Lupin's last name (Lupin is thought to have come from Lupe meaning wolf) I read some were O'Connell is suppose to mean "strength of a wolf"

And yes, Kingsly would have to be very old to have been in the minestry and 'seemingly in charge', but I never mention he is head auror, just a leader of a small group.

And yes I did the math, the death eaters were just starting to rise during that time, a fun little killing would be normal every couple months or so

Also I mention that 4 expelliarums charms made by professional wizards, on a 11 yer old only push her back a little, well that would have to do with the werewolf part, like how it takes an extremely well cast "stupefy" just to stop Grayback from moving.

And I apologize, I feel stupid for naming it Two Wolfs, instead of Two Wolves, its just I was going to make it 'wolfs' as a joke, but I decided against it, forgetting to change the name….. but its done now!

WOLF OUT!

oh disclaimer (im allways late on this stuff)

I do not leagly own like anything i just a super duper uper luper(yays) juper huper.. well im a humongo fan. aslo i will one day invent chewy water!

(had to ad the chewy water part, it popped into my head just soo randomely, anyway watch out 4 hippos, they kill more people then lions)


	3. The Weird Girl In My Train Compartment

Aeryn waved to her parents has she got onto the train, dragging her bag behind her. On her shoulder was her pet frog, Patrick. After putting her luggage away she walked down the hall, looking for a compartment that was empty. It wasn't until near end that she finally found one.

Next she took her frog and stuck him in her jacket pocket so he wouldn't fall; making sure his head was out so he could breath. She leaned over, elbows on her knees, The full moon was only a two days ago, and she was exhausted and her wrist wounded. As she leaned over she couldn't help glance over at the compartment next to her.

Their were four boys, a tall lean one, with messy windswept hair, a broad, and slightly muscular one who had such good looks that he could make any faint-hearted girl faint (bad pun), and a small mousy boy who kept trying to get into the conversation. The last boy who, was apologizing for something got up.

She hadn't noticed him much since the good looking one had been blocking him, but as he slide open the compartment door, Aeryn managed to get a clear look. He was tall and lanky with shaggy golden blonde hair and tired gray eyes, with a fresh bandage on his cheek. A first she wondered why he had left his obviously popular friends, but then she saw the badge on his robes, a perfect.

The train ride seemed to take forever, especially when you have nothing to do, so to pass the time Aeryn would just watch the boys, wondering what they were always laughing about, longing to be apart of some group, no matter how bad they were.

She changed her robes, bought some Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, but it wasn't until it got dark until the blonde perfect came back to rejoin his friends. Trailing behind him looking for an open compartment was a pretty brownish-red haired girl who also had a perfects badge. One of the boys waved to her, but she gave him the cold shoulder and turned to Aeryn's compartment instead.

"Hey, mind if I sit here?" the pretty girl asked.

"Go ahead." Aeryn replied automatically.

The she went back to watching the boys, she wasn't trying to be a stalker; Aeryn was jut curious.

"Hard to keep you eyes of off Sirius Black, eh?"

"Who?" said Aeryn, surprised she had been caught staring, but not at Sirius, the perfect.

You don't know who Sirius Black is?" the girl said, surprised.

"Nope, matter a fact, I don't have a damned clue who anyone on this bus is!" Aeryn replied with mock cheerfulness.

"But your way to old to be a first year…?" She said, confused

Aeryn jut rolled he eyes, covering her forehead.

"Fine be mysterious, I'm Lily Evans by the way. And those guys over there," she said pointing to the other compartment. "Well James is the annoying one with windswept hair, Sirius is the bigger guy, Peter is the smallest, and Remus is the perfect."

"Hmm. I Aeryn by the way, Aeryn O'Connell, and I think I'm gunna sleep now if you don't mind, Lily" said Aeryn, she was glad this Lily Evens girl had told her the names, but the recent full moon made her much to tired for any real conversation.

"Fine." replied Lily, slightly offended.

Right before drifting sleep, Aeryn couldn't help notice how tired the boy, Remus, looked.

Remus was exhausted, the perfect meeting, no matter how important it was, was terribly boring and didn't help his tiredness from the full moon. Because he was half asleep, James, Sirius, and Peter's jokes sounded fuzzy and it took a good amount of effort to turn his head so he could look around the train. Lily Evens, the other perfect and James's crush, was sitting across from an unfamiliar girl, who was sleeping.

Lily was ignoring the girl and instead reading a muggle book (indicated by the still picture on the cover), but before he tell what it was, he drifted asleep.

Lily sighed as she got on a carriage full of Hufflepuffs. She didn't like disliking people, but the girl had fallen asleep for god's sake! Was she that boring? Not to mention, when the train had stopped Lily had woken the girl up, just to be nice, but when she did so, not only did the girl wake, but a bright green frog jumped out of Aeryn's pocket and onto her head!

Lily looked around at the other carriages, but couldn't spot Aeryn. She shrugged; the frog girl must have gotten onto a different one.

The trip back to Hogwarts was uneventful for Lily; she just spent most of it reading her book, wondering in the back of her head where the girl was… she didn't have a house patch.

After what seemed like hours, Lily and the others from her carriage got off and filed into Hogwarts.

Lily chose to sit somewhere in the middle of the table, but this ended up to be a bad idea…

"Hey Lils!" said James as he casually plopped down beside her, Sirius was across from her, Peter next to him, and Remus at the end, rolling his eyes.

"Uhh.." mumbled Lily, she had forgotten about James Potter. "Potter, as a perfect I really need to sit next to the new students, so why don't I move over here…" she sat moving over so she was across from Remus Lupin, "And you stay right were you are, ok? Ok!" she added, answering for him.

James frowned, but didn't say anything; he knew when he had lost.

Sirius chuckled at James shaking is head, while Remus just rolled his eyes.

Dumbledore stood in front, and started the announcements: "Welcome back everyone, now before we start the sorting, and let the in first years, in I have a special announcement to make." Dumbledore paused and a tall ginger haired girl, with electric blue eyes was pushed out of the chamber behind the teacher's table.

Her face was nearly as red as her hair as she walked up to Dumbledore.

"Miss Aeryn O'Connell will be joining the fifth year, and staying at Hogwarts for the rest of her education. She has been home schooled before now, but that is no reason to doubt her."

Many students rolled their eyes, thinking she was probably no smarter then a first year, but Lily stared curiously, her question had been answered.

"Aeryn would you mind a little challenge, I feel it would be best to show a good example to the school."

Aeryn looked extremely worried, but agree to it. Then with wave of Dumbledore's wand, one of the Hufflepuff's forks grew wings and started to fly around the room changing directions every few seconds.

"Stun it" Dumbledore asked simply.

With razor sharp reflexes Aeryn pull out her wand stunning the flying fork with her good hand, in one hit, right over the Gryffindor table. Then,To add to the excitment, with seeker reflexes, James jumped up on the table and caught the fork before it could fall.

Students clapped for both of them, no one doubted Aeryn anymore.

"Did yah see that Lily, I did it for you!" whispered James as he moved over to sit next to Lily. But just at that moment, the sorting hat, which had been taken out during the clapping, yelled "GRIFFINDOR" as it sat on Aeryn head.

"Ohh sorry James, I bet Aeryn wants to sit next me!" Lily improvised, pushing James back and grabbing Aeryn so she could sit were Lily had previously occupied, across from Lupin.

"Uhh Hello…?" Aery O'Connell said nervously.

"Welcome to Gryffindor!!" chorused James, Sirius, and the squeaky voice of Peter.

"Yup Welcome" Remus added in trying not to laugh.

"Ughh, will you idiots stop annoying her!"

They all put up faces of mock offense (though James's was slightly real), but then the first years came in and the boys paid more attention to them. As Sirius waved at every girl, giving them a flashing grin, Aeryn turned to Lily.

There was an awkward pause between them, which lasted through the sorting hat song and the naming of the first couple of students.

"Uhh I'm sorry I don't think we got off on the best of terms on the bus," started Aeryn, "you see I haven't been feeling well, so I' really tired, and my frog, Patrick, well he enjoys jumping on people."

"It's ok." Lily replied, noticing the girl's wrist was bandaged, and her face was quite pale. "You do look kind of sick, something must be going around; Remus looks pretty bad too."

Before they could say anything more, the last of the first years, two giggling Gryffindor girls, sat to Aeryn's left, eager to be near Sirius.

After the last students settled in, Dumbledore stood up again, and the hall went quiet.

"Welcome, welcome to another fine year at Hogwarts, now I don't want to hold up your eating, but I have a few words to say. Bippt! Noke! Kahpoka!" he said quite randomly then sat down again.

Many kids laughed and clapped, Aeryn joining in as she noticed Lily smiling and clapping.

With a wave of the old man's wand the plates in front of them filled with food, and a Hufflepuff, got another fork.

"Huh, what a loony." said James as he started eating some pork chops.

"I brilliant loony, if I do say so myself." added Remus as he pulled up his sleeves to begin eating.

Something caught Aeryn's eyes as he did so, it was a bite mark scar, but not from the jaws of just any animal… It was that of a werewolf, one Aeryn could never froze stiff, food just about to enter her mouth.

Remus was a werewolf, he was the other one.

* * *

(My Ramblings)

I planned to make this longer but the ending was to suspenseful, it had to be!. I apologize if u got confused with all the switch around to what others are doing, but I didn't want it to JUST be super mainly about one person, Remie Lupin and Lily r important too. And just a head of time warning a good amount of the little history we know will be changed somewhat.. but u'll have to read.

And if ur wondering why lily is forced to sit with some tired new girl… well just read on my friends. Read on!

ohh and i once had a Frog named Patrick we just resently(as in a year) had to set him free when we moved to a house a mile away, most of pet names have to do with pets i have had, since ive had plenty.

WOLFY OUT

Ps …god my neighbors r annoying, they put there trash out at one in the morning for gods sake I mean I might be awake but still!.. oops im typing this.. lol

And if u don't like my ramblings don't read 'em ok? Just read the story part and review an stuff  I just like reading other people's rambles so I thought I will let u read 'em too.


	4. Waking Up For Different Reasons

After the end of the banquet announcements Remus and Lily got up to lead the first years to their dorms.

"Sorry Aeryn, I gotta go." said Lily a she got up from the table.

"Where?" wondered Aeryn

"I got to show the fir—Oh wait you don't know where the dorms are, do you?" started Lily, until she remembered that Aeryn was new.

"Not a clue." replied Aeryn tiredly.

"Ok follow me and Remus."

Together they walked towards Remus and the group of first years. As they approached he acknowledged them with a nod, and Lily went up to the front to join him, Aeryn tagging along, slightly behind.

Lily and a tired Remus lead the first years up and down stairs, through hallways until they finally reached a portrait of a fat lady on the wall. Aeryn smiled, a picture passageway.

"Ok first years, this is the Fat lady, behind her is the Gryffindor common room. There will be a different password every week that our head of house McGonagall will inform us of. Today the password is 'Flamy Jam'. "

As she said it, the Fat Lady opened her picture, waving as they walked by.

"Ok girls over there, guys this away," said Remus as he lead the boys to the first year dorms before retiring to his own.

The girls walked up to there dorms, passing excited first years on their way.

"Are you and Remus close by any chance?" Aeryn asked cautiously, trying to see if Lily knew about him.

"No, no, no. Were just perfects and I just happen to know him, but nothing else… why? Do you like him?" asked Lily curiously.

"Hell! I don't even know him! I saw him on the train, THAT'S IT!" Aeryn muttered loudly, covering up the real reason. It see no one knows what he is, she though to herself.

"So, I bet you'll be hanging around with all your friends now huh?" asked Aeryn as the entered the room.

"Uhh… Oh here's your bed" Lily changed the subject as she pointed to the new bed laid out with Aeryn's stuff, Patrick's frog cage was even there with him happily swimming it in.

"Yea, ok, you're changing the subject, what happened?"

"Well… it's a long story," started Lily

"You can tell me as we get ready." interrupted Aeryn, she might have been tired from her wolf-issue, but friends should come first some times, and it had been a while since Aeryn had got the chance to let it come first.

As they got ready, Lily began the story, "Well it started when I discovered my poweres, im muggle born you see. I would use them sometimes, somewhat recklessly. As it turns out there was a wizard in our neighborhood Severus. Sev came from a mostly pureblood, dark kind of family but he wasn't all like them. It was hard for him, they would fight costantly and he had to be stuck in the middle. It was Sev who told me I was a witch, and when my muggle sister got jealous, he helped defend me. Severus got sorted into Slytherin though, but we tried to be friends. Still he started hanging out with the wrong people and, well last year he called me and my friends mudbloods by accident,"

Aeryn's brows furrowed, what kind of bastard would say that to his friend?

"He apologized, but my friends didn't accept, even though I did, I mean he can't help it! I guess that kind drove a wedge between me and my old friends." She ended sadly.

"Hmph, well I' gunna have to meet this Sev guy, then I'll respond appropriately" responded Aeryn thoughtfully, I guess she wouldn't be able to kick his sorry ass, yet.

"And what about your personal stalker, James?" asked Aeryn wanting to understand Lily's situation.

"Yea well, he's had a crush on me, ever since first year. But he's a big jerk, always so vain, he PUPOSLY messes up his hair so he looks all 'cool'. Not to mention he picks on Sev all the time, even when Severus doesn't do anything. Potter is just so full of himself!" almost yelled out angrily. She really had been waiting to say that.

After they were done brushing and washing, they both settled on their bed's.

"No roommates?" asked Aeryn, motioning to the spare beds.

"Had two others before, twins, but they moved to somewhere in France. They were kind annoying anyway, Vela, snobby… kinda slutty too, I could swear they went through more men each month then Sirius all year! And that's saying something!"

From what Aeryn had heard and what little she could tell from her unusually good people skills, that was saying something.

"Well good night, Aeryn."

"G'night, Lily."

Lily was having the same dream again. She had it almost every week every since that first kiss with James she hadn't mentioned. She remembered it clearly they ad been walking in the hall on Christmas. Lily was returning books she had borrowed when she crashed right into James, dropping her books. After the both had gotten up James was about to help give her the books when he looked up and said one word, "Mistletoe". She should have just run away but she didn't, it was her fist and best kiss, ever. She wished she had known what an arse that kid would have been, otherwise she would have slapped him in the face and ran.

Her dream, or nightmare, it wasn't clear witch one it was, repeated the scene, adding in all the times he had tried to please her, but she had ignored the selfish git.

It was midnight and Professor McGonagall was on a mission.

Minerva McGonagall was generally new to Hogwarts, she had been hired here when Albus had got promoted and a transfiguration spot opened. Teaching under Dumbledore took some getting used too; he was so loose, so seemingly reckless it just bothered her a little. Still she could always do other things in her life though, Minerva constantly thought to herself, she was only thirty seven, and there was only a thin highlight of gray in her raven black hair, and she claimed it was an added detail, to appear more 'hip' or whatever the children cared about.

She walked up a flight of stairs, Albus had told her to go get Mr. Lupin and Mrs. O'Connell from their dorms for whatever reason, that was why she was now heading up to the dorms in the middle of the night.

McGonagall was a very sensible woman, it wasn't hard to tell, one look through her glasses at her cold pale eyes and you knew it would be stupid to question her. Lately though, Albus had been testing her to her limit, retrieving random students at night was only one of the many quests she had been sent on.

As she entered the room she cast a mufflio charm around Aeryn's bed and the rest of the room. **(muffilo was known before Snape's time by some excellent witches, including young McGonagall)**

Not sure how to do it, Minerva walked over to the girl's bed and yelled "WAKE UP!"

This startled the fast asleep Aeryn, who suddenly sat up and roared "I'M GUNNA EAT YOU F—"

Aeryn paused, pinched herself to see if she was dreaming, and then growled in a wolf like fashion, that would scare almost anyone silly, "Oh. Well…? What. Do. You. Want. Professor? She said spacing out the words to ensure her point was made.

"Albus-Dumbledore-wants-to-see-you! Minerva replied quickly, looking somewhat scared. Then she murmured "Uhh, you can get ready, I'll meet you out side with—" but she was already out the door before Aeryn could scare her anymore.

"Children these days."

Aeryn got up, slightly surprised Lily was still fast asleep. She shrugged and decided to put on some pants since wearing only an extra, extra big shirt to the headmaster's office wouldn't be a smart idea. After getting on some skinny jeans and a black cloak, she headed out to wait in the common room until the professor arrived

"Children these days" McGonagall muttered as she headed up to Lupin's dorm. As she entered the room she cast the muffling charm, and then went over to Remus's bed.

"Umm… Mr. Lupin, wake up?" she asked, trying a new approach.

"You stepped in cow pie?" Lupin muttered sleepily.

"Umm no. Dumbledore wants to see you."

Remus shook his head sleepily, and sat up "Oh yea I guess I shoulda expected this. One second."

Quickly Remus got up; showing off his red striped PJs, then he put on a (matching) red sweater and his cloak. Next he followed McGonagall out into the common room. To his surprise another girl, Aeryn stood up at their arrival, she too looked like she had been just woken up. Remus's brows furrowed, why would a new girl would be present at his and Dumbledore's Yearly, Annoying Werewolf Check-Ups, or in code YAWCU? Then he froze before following them through the portrait hole, as it suddenly hit him.

She was a werewolf too.

_:::::_

_Lily was walking down the hall, barely managing to balance all four of the books she was planning to return before her holiday. As she was about to turn a corner, a suit of armor started singing her favorite Christmas tune, the muggle version of course. Humming, Lily accideny collided with a boy while turning the corner. It was James, the famous young seeker. Lily didn't like him very much as he had made fun of Sev plenty of times, but still he had won many games for Gryffindor. As they crashed Lily's books went everywhere. Soon both of them were on the ground with many 'Sorry's and 'Its ok's. _

"_If you want I'll help carry them." offered James_

"_Oh that's ni—" Lily started, but she was interrupted as James stood frozen looking up._

"_Mistletoe."_

_They paused for a second then nodded._

_Lily blushed furiously as they leaned together. The kiss was everything a little girl could ask for on Christmas Eve. It lasted for a few seconds as snow started to fall from behind the window. Slowly they both pulled away, redder than their Gryffindor scarves._

"_To the Library?" mumbled James_

_Lily nodded, and they went off down the hallway, toward the library_

_-Next day-_

_James was walking down the hallway. He had just bout played the biggest prank ever, not only were all the Slytherin's underclothes hanging from the Christmas tree, but they would have a hard time getting out too see or take it down since James and the marauders had magically glued their portrait hole shut.__ James told the others he would be back, as he left for the library, to see if he could find Lily. _

_News of his pranks were spreading, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, cheered at him as he walked by. On the way he passed a broom closet, not far from where he and Lily had kissed. He stopped for a moment to savor the memory, when someone grabbed him from behind, pulling him into the closet. _

_It was a 4__th__ year Ravenclaw, clearly drunk. James tried to escape her clutches, but the girl held him in, passionately kissing him all over the face. Meanwhile Lily had been heading to the common room when she hard loud noises coming from a closet, not knowing the rule 'Never open a noisy broom closet' she opened it, and the drunk Ravenclaw slut, came flying out with James, who's face was covered in lip-gloss._

"_James?!" yelled a horror stricken Lily; as the drunk Ravenclaw stumbled away aimlessly. Lily turned around running the opposite way away._

"_Lily! It's not like that!" he yelled chasing after her._

The nightmare-dream ended as Lily woke up with a terrible headache. She sat up rubbing her head and looking around. Aeryn's empty bed came into view.

"Were could she have gone?" Lily asked to no one, hoping Aeryn would appear from behind something to answer her. Groggily, Lily got off her bed and covered her frog pajamas with a black cloak. Maybe she went for a drink of water? But Lily quickly contradicted herself, Aeryn didn't have a clue where the kitchens were, let alone how to tickle the pair to get in. As she stepped into the conmen room she saw another figure, wearing dark blue boxers and a gray sleeveless shirt, James.

"James?" questioned Lily, to the groggy boy who seemed to be looking for something.

"Oh. Hi Lily." said a half asleep James who hadn't noticed he had been caught in his boxers wandering around past midnight.

"Have you seen Aeryn O'Connell, the new girl?" asked Lily.

"Nope but Remus is gone too."

There was an awkward pause.

"Ohh god you don't think…" asked Lily with wide eyes, thinking about Aeryn, Remus, and a broom closet, which was pretty close to what was realy happening, if you took out the broom closet, and what they would be doing there, and instead added in Dumbledore and his YAWCUs.

"Wait what day is it?" asked James who seemed more awake at Lily's suggestion.

"Uhh… The day after September 1st," replied Lily, who was a little slow from being tired.

"Oh." James mumbled to himself. Then he implied more loudly, "You know, I think Remus just left waking me up, saying he had left something in the great hall. Aeryn was probably looking for a midnight snack and he saw her wandering and told her the way to the kitchens."

"Maybe." said Lily, as they lapsed into an awkward silence. The last time they had been alone, was five years ago, under mistletoe.

James looked down, noticing he was in his boxers, and mumbled a quick "G'night."

As Lily was about to enter the dorm she heard him yell "I'm sorry!" from the entrance to the boy's dorm. She ignored it remembering the promise she had made five years ago after James had been snogging the Ravenclaw in the closet.

_I will never fall for James Potter, no matter what stupid tricks he comes up with._

* * *

(My ramblings)

Yes I know I made a dramatic first year romance-goes-wrong, for lily and James. One that would normally be solved, if James wasn't always so insulting towards Sev. Notice she refers to him as 'James' no 'Potter', showing that she's to distracted to keep up her cold-shoulder act towards him.

Hehe James is wandering sleepily in his boxers.

And yes McGonagall is young O.o... whoa! But it makes since since James and sirius always call her 'Minne', or is that from some other fan fic... ooh wells im using it. and yes she does gray early, since shes olny aroud fifthy in Harry's time.

Muhahahahahha I'm as hyperized as caffeinated Squirrels *wink wink* Alphakirawolf *wink*

Hhehhehe one of my faves so far, even though I barely have anything…..

Wolf out, ps i hope i edited this enoff since spell check hides stuffs from me, plus its lt

PROPER WOLF OUT!!!!

giggly goooo-ooh-ohh


	5. The Tasty Morning Task

Remus and Aeryn walked back to the common room, Aeryn drinking from a mug of coffee, and Remus nearly sleep walking. They had just had their YAWCU (Yearly Annoying werewolf check-ups), with Dumbledore, and were now walking back.

It hadn't been very exciting, in fact, because Aeryn fell asleep in the middle of Dumbledore's explaining of the shrieking shack, she had been given a coffee, curtsey of Nuffles the house elf. The meeting had been generally short, (but not short enough for the two who had been woken up at midnight, only a few days after a cycle), Dumbledore explained how they would each transform in separate rooms, then after transforming they could brave out the cycle together, (Werewolves can only recognize other werewolves, and most of the time, other animals, so less 'I wanna eat you').

Nothing was really new for Remus, though he had never transformed with another werewolf, he doubted that would do anything, other then making it somewhat better. But the one thing that did bother him was that Aeryn was a girl. When a werewolf transforms any clothing it s wearing, that cannot fit, is ripped off, whether from fighting, or from the transformation itself. Remus, unlike other boys of his age, was very much not perverted, and it would be almost impossible to become friends with a girl you accidentally saw naked.

"Want some coffee so you don't like collapse, or something?" interrupted a fully awake Aeryn, to Remus; who's thoughts were starting to go fuzzy.

Remus shook his head; trying to stop himself from drifting off, "No thanks, I'll never be able to sleep then."

A few seconds later Remus stumbled a bit, but Aeryn grabbed him before he could fall.

"How about now?" she asked, with a 'told you so' look on her face.

"Fine" Remus muttered, too tired to show much anger.

Aeryn handed him the coffee, it was only half full, but she seem bouncy enough, that he would have believed her to have drunken two cups.

Remus took a sip, and instantly, sudden warmth rushed through his body, rejuvenating his systems.

"Enchanted coffee?" asked Remus, wondering how one sip could to such magic.

"That or an anti-sleep, potion mixed with coffee, I saw Dumby-dore slip something in it. But I trusted him; I doubted he was trying to kill me or something."

"Impressive, I didn't notice, though I myself could have used one at the time." Remus paused, then continued, "Still I can't help but wonder. The stunning spell you did…" Remus thought for a moment, "yesterday, was impressive, nonverbal too."

"Nonverbal? Really?" Aeryn looked genuinely surprised, "God I was so scared I thought I would accidentally give it boils or something!"

"Yeah I don't blame you; I've never seen Dumbledore test anyone like that." sympathized Remus.

"Thanks." replied Aeryn, who was playing with her fiery orange hair, blushing.

"So how come you're here so… Uhh… well, late?"

Aeryn had a feeling he would get to this, she would be telling this story often, "My neighbors were murdered not long after I was eleven, and I didn't help that my Mom's sister, Johanna died two years ago."

"Oh… I'm sorry for your loss."

"Its okay she died fighting, just like she wanted. She took down all twenty of the Death Eaters, before getting hit by a killing curse from the last one, just as he was dieing."

Remus was tempted to hug her, and make her feel better, but he decided against it. It would be much too awkward. Still he could help but to lightly pat her on the back, as she looked off into the distance sadly.

He knew how it felt to lose someone in these hard times.

By the light of a waning moon, they walked down the hall each switching off taking sips from the coffee, until they reached the Fat Lady, and the mug had finally been emptied. The Fat lady was angry at them awakening her; still, she opened the door begrudgingly at the password.

"G'night… or good morning, I guess." said Aeryn before slipping into her dorm, with the cup.

"Good morning then." replied Remus as he entered his dorm, chuckling quietly.

As both of them sat on their beds, they immediately fell asleep, whether it was the coffee wearing off, or some sort of time limit, they both fell asleep how they were sitting, half way on the bed, before they could change, or Aeryn could even put the mug down.

Aeryn woke up as she hit the floor. It was early in the morning and she had just rolled off her bed, due to her being only half way on in the first place. She had fallen asleep with her jeans still on and cloak wrapped around her like a blanket. Surprisingly, still in her hand was the coffee mug, empty other then the soggy coffee grains, that still resided at the bottom of cup. She looked and saw that what was left in the cup had dried into a heart shape. But she wa to tired to notice much and thought nothing of it, placing the mug on the small table next to her bed.

Quickly she showered, got dressed then went to brush her hair in the dorm bathroom, when she heard Lily wake up.

"Good morning!" greeted Aeryn as Lily came in to brush her teeth.

Lily only responded by looking at Aeryn suspiciously, then proceeding to brush her teeth. Aeryn tilted her head then shrugged and continued to brush her hair. When they were done they both silently walked down to the Dining Hall, Lily casting glances at her roommate every once in a while.

As they sat down at the table Remus sat across from them, James joining him with a wink towards Lily.

"Morning Lily-Flower!"

Aeryn had to hold back a snigger, but Lily's serious expression changed that.

"So. May I ask where you and Remus where las—" Lily tried in inquire, but just then Sirius stumbled, and some how mangled to knock Aeryn, and her food, onto the ground. (The scene looked different to many far away bystanders who saw Aeryn being pulled by Sirius and Remus jinxing her food off the table"

"Oh my I'm so sorry—" said Sirius a little to loudly as he helped Aeryn clean up. Then he quickly whispered "Aeryn, James and I know you're both werewolves! But you can't tell Lily. Your story is that you wandered down for a midnight snack, when Remus, who had been looking for something, showed you to the kitchen, and taught you how to tickle the pair to get in. You got some hot coco and a cookie then went back, end of story" Sirius finished rather quickly as they cleaned up the rest of her food. Areyn gave him a quick nod as he settled next to her, saying she understood, and then he began piling food on his plate as if nothing happened.

"So like I had been saying, before Black's clumsy interruption, where were you last night?" re-asked Lily.

"Well…" started Aeryn, "Last night I wandered down for a midnight snack, but I wasn't sure were to go. Then Remus, who had been looking for something in the common room, politely showed me to the kitchen, and taught me how to tickle the pair to get in. Then I got some hot coco and a cookie and we went back."

Lily sighed with relief, for once glad that James was right.

But before either of them could eat peaceful they spotted James making a gigantic sandwich.

He first took to pieces of toast, put peanut butter on one, bagel chips on the other. Next he crumbled gram crackers on the peanut butter, and cream cheese on the bagel chip. Finally he stuck a granola bar on one as he stuck them together.

"Tah dah!" he announced.

Sirius clapped for James excitedly but Remus was less enthusiastic, staring at the monster of a sandwich worriedly, especially when James mumbled something at it, waving his wand ever so slightly.

"Hey Lily, wanna bite? It's really good." he asked eagerly.

"Sorry but I'd rather not barf." replied Lily, then to Aeryn she added, "He's been trying to get me to eat that ever since third year, that's when they all vowed to be trouble-makers."

"How 'bout you Aeryn? Wanna bite, I'll take one first if you don't trust Me." asked James, despite Remus looking at it even more worriedly.

"Uhh sure." replied Aeryn, ignoring Lily's cold green eyes.

Without much grace she took the sandwich, and tried to take a bite. Pieces of bagel chip and gram cracker spilled out onto her plate. The strange sandwich was surprisingly delicious, it was very sweet, and sent a strange tingly sensation down her spine as she swallowed it.

"Huh, that's weird, it's really not bad, good in fact." said Aeryn as she handed back the sandwich to James, who cleaned off the part she had bit with his wand, then munched on it happily.

Remus looked a little relieved, and Sirius was chuckling quietly.

Lily shrugged and they both started on the rest of their breakfast.

"Schedules!" said Professor McGonagall as she handed her house's students their Schedules.

"Here you go Miss O'Connell, Mrs. Evans, Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, Mr. Lupin, and… weres your friend.. um what's his name.."

"Peter's with his sick mom, Minnie." said Sirius causally, as they all read their lists.

"Grrr… My. Name. Is. Not. Minnie!" fumed McGonagall as she passed the rest of the schedules out to the others.

"So what are you doing this monday?" asked Lily.

"Today I got Advanced Art, free study period, double History of Magic, Defense Against Dark Arts, and double potions." Aeryn read off of her list, it sounded like an interesting day.

"Sounds good. I got everything but that art and that free period. Still I'm surprised you got art, you had to have at least four Os last year to get in, I could have but I'm taking Runes and Divination instead."

"So I have to solo art?" asked Aeryn nervously.

"Uhh... nope I think Lupin has it too, were just about the only people smart enough to." She said looking over at James, who was proving her point quite nicely, as the entire content of the super sandwich fell out on his schedule.

"Lupin, you got Advanced Art right?" asked Lily when James had finally finished making a fool of himself.

Once again Remus looked directly at Aeryn, somewhat worried, "Yeah I'll take Aeryn there. It'll be good to have some one else. Only one, other then me, made it to intermediate art last year."

Lily looked down at her watch, "I better go, Runes starts early on Mondays!" she said, rushing off.

As she left, Sirius and James got up, James hopping over the table. The boys surrounded Aeryn, hawk like, wicked grin on their faces, Remus still stood across the table rubbing his temple in frustration.

"She ate it" Jmes said with a creepy voice.

"She did, and took the challenge." replied an equally spooky Sirius

Aeryn stood up, them surrounding her was starting to freak her out.

"So now you're in the racings to be a Marauder"

"Yep, welcome to the Marauders, Filch's hell"

"Marauders?" asked Aeryn, confused, "Is that some sort of gang thing?"

The boys, other then Remus, continued circling her.

"Uh C'mon, lets get to class, I'll explain it on the way." sighed Remus, as he jumped the table and dragged Aeryn out of the circle by her arm.

Aeryn struggled, she knew that Filch was the care keeper, so these must be the mischievous ones… "Hey wait… geroff!" she said as Remus dragged her out. "Wait! I accept!"

Aeryn managed to get out of Remus's iron grip and they bickered on the way to their class, Aeryn even slapped him couple times.

"Hehehe that was funny!" laughed Sirius.

"Yeah, I think we genuinely pissed Remmie-cakes by inviting his new girlfriend." chuckled James.

"I must say, I love our acting though, I think she really fell for the circling thing, and my brilliant tripping thing at the start." said Sirius

"True. Still maybe we shoulda told Remus the whole deal, or he'll hunt us down next full moon." added James with a little more seriousness.

"Yeah, well, by then Aeryn will have completed the other tasks, and we'll have a she-wolf on our side." pointed out Sirius as they left the dining hall.

"Not to mention my brilliant plan!" reminded James.

"Yeah I guess we got your insane plan."

"Speaking of that, we should head to the library before divination, there is some stuff I wanna look up on it before I suggest it to Remmie-cakes."

"The library?? James, what happened to you?!!" teased Sirius.

And with that they headed toward the library.

* * *

(my ramblings)

It took me a while to get myself to write this, its not that I was bored but the stupid vaccine/shots I got like pained, my right arm, its not bad now unless u poke 'em (which I will kill u If u do)

---I just though I'd mention that Johanna; was my Aunt, who died from cancer recently. I though It'd be sweet to mention her going down fighting a bunch of bad guys, she woulda liked it. She was a pretty big HP fan herself, gave me the books, which started my reading, then my writing then this.

On a less sad subject

The granola bar is hiding from me… were did it go…. crud I can't find it… not in my bed, in the bathroom… Oh wait u don't care… much.

WOLF OUT!

Hehe today I was dared to eat a sandwich very much like that, just wit no cream cheese. It really tasted quite fine, and earned a special place in my story. Heehee Remmie-cakes, yummy.

****

* * *

FOR REMUS LUPIN'S SAKE

_pleazz review, I like reviews._

* * *


	6. Arguments and Breaking Rules For A Plan

"Never ever ever never GRAB ME LIKE THAT" yelled Aeryn as she followed Remus to the art class not paying attention were they were heading.

"Hey… when you put it like that it sounds kinda wrong…" he started off weakly "It's just, just you don't know what you were getting into! That stupid sandwich was hexed with this thing we call the "Trials". The idiots make up these tasks for you to make sure your troublesome enough, or whatever." He said with a wolfish grumble as they turned a corner, "But they weren't supposed to do the stupid trick on you, being a girl and all" he finished as they came to a fork in  
the hall.

"Your point being…?" said Aeryn, harshly.

"Ugh never mind you do fit in well" muttered Remus

"Yes I do! Do you have an issue with that!?! At least I don't go man handling people who I think can't make the right decision! Besides how the hell did you get into the group? Pity?" Aeryn yelled as she went storming off down one of the hall ways.

"Why does she have to make that sound so dirty?" Remus muttered to himself, trying to forget about the 'pity' part, "Oh by the way, it's this way" he added loudly enough for her to hear as he went down the other hallway.

Aeryn turned looking like she was about to make a smart comeback, but she was unable to and decided to followed Remus, but at the same time pretend as though he was unneeded. Then at last, they reached the art room.

"Here" was all Remus said as they approach a bright red round door. And before he could hear any smart comment by Aeryn he entered the room and sat in the farthest of the three seats in the room, the middle on being occupied. With her head held high, Aeryn followed him in but choose the closest seat.

The room was dome shaped and the same color red as the entry door. Other then the bright coloring there was no other clues pointing to the fact that this room had anything to do with art; in fact it was completely empty other then the three now occupied chairs. After cooling off for a second Aeryn noticed the girl next to her. She was small with short brown hair and golden brown eyes, and she had a very friendly non-threatening atmosphere about her, but in Aeryn's head that all seemed to change when she noticed the color of the girl's scarf, an unmistakable green and silver. As a metaphorical clock ticked on, the Slytherin started leaning back on her chair and staring at a section of the wall some were beyond Aeryn's line of vision.

"Slytherins." muttered Aeryn.

But before she could make some sort of smart comment she heard a noise from somewhere behind the chairs. Aeryn looked around, neither the girl, nor Remus were surprised, they just stared at a section of the wall that seemed near the source of the disturbance. Then there was a puff of smoke and a passageway seemed to appear were there had been a plain wall. But what had to be more surprising would be then man walking through it.

He was tall and somewhat buff looking with broad shoulders and rough scarred looking skin. But what had to be the strangest thing was his clothing. Instead of the plain robes most teachers wore, he looked more like a character who had just walked out of a pirate movie. He had knee high leather boots that went over a pair of dirty brown muggle pants. His shirt was white and as equally dirty with a rip or two at the seams, over that he had a loose dark brown vest with an assortment of doo-dads attached to it. Also, to tie it all together he wore a red sash around his waist and his shortly cropped brown hair. As he made his way to the front, and promptly conjured himself a chair Aeryn was able to see his face clearly. He had three prominet scars running from under his head sash down to his jaw and two beetle back eyes that seemed to examine everything.

Then with a small _eh hem_, he began. "Welcome Aeryn, and welcome back Iris and Remus, I'm Professor Nestor Moody. And I'll be a teachn' you art"

--

James and Sirius were in the library looking in transfiguration books to do some research on the 'insane' plan. As he flipped through the pages of a large old volume, James couldn't help looking over his shoulder at the batty old librarian. Why do all Librarians have to be mean and old, he thought. Why can't they be sexy _and_ smart like Lily!

"Oh well." James muttered aloud as he set down the old book, he hadn't found anything new on how to become an animagus, it was just the same old warnings about it going wrong, and ways to re-human someone in there animal form, nothing helpful on the spell or ceremony for turn into one.

Sighing and closing his book, Sirius leaned over to James.

"Honestly mate, I think we'll have to sneak into the restricted section." he whispered to James.

"Yeah I agree Siri', how 'bout we make this a test for Aeryn, she did eat the sandwich."

"But, Jamey what if she tells Lupey?"

"Trust me the way they were bickering after she said yes o our group, I'm pretty sure Aeryn wouldn't give us away."

"That's true Lily-lover, she'd probably be glad, plus it'll make a great challenge"

James snorted a little too loud "Hehe Lily-Lover, good one"

'SHHHHH!' shushed the librarian angrily "Why is Dumbledore insane enough to give 5th years free period, they should have study hall so I can have some peace of mind for a change!" she muttered darkly, loud enough for the boys to hear her.

Taking that as a sign to leave for divination, Sirius and James packed up and headed for the east tower, planning on how best to confront Aeryn about the task, without the other wolf or Lily hearing about it.

---

The day went by extremely slow for Aeryn, during her free period she got lost and was late for double History of Magic (not that Binns noticed), which ended up being terribly boring, making her wish she had missed more (of course when she expressed these feelings to Lily, she got a disapproving look). Next, Defense against dark arts wasn't much better, because they spent the whole time with an O.W.L. lecture. And finally, to end the wonderful day, she had double potions with Slughorn. Not only did she get to watch him fawn over Lily all class, but she was thoroughly nagged into joining the 'Slug club' with Lily, making her wish she could be sticking the Professor's head in Remus's cauldron, who to her annoyance had brewed the second best (second to lily's) draught of the living dead, the potion would make sure the Professor'd just shut the hell up.

Aeryn sighed plopping down on one of the common room couches, and lugged her schoolwork onto the table, the teachers had not gone easy one them, making the excuse they needed to study for the _end of the year _O.W.L.S.

"Lot of work huh?" asked Lily as she set her bag down next to Aeryn's.

"Mmmhhmm" grumbled Aeryn as she nodded solemnly.

"Well I'm going to get Lupin for our perfect rounds, keep my bag safe please."

"Okay, have fun" she said as Lily left "With that wussy" she added.

"What wussy?" asked Sirius as he plopped down next to Aeryn, while James went on the other side of her, with twin like identicalness. Even thoug she shared every one o her classed with them they always seemed to disapear afterwards, leaving her with Lily, not that she minded.

"Have a task planned?" whispered Aeryn excitedly.

"Yes indeed, exceedingly smart guess, apprentice Aeryn." responded Sirius with an approving nod.

"First line of business, you can't tell Remie-cakes, 'bout this." said James, making Aeryn smirk.

"Now to the plan, objective is to go to the restricted section of the library, and find a book detailing on how to become an animagus." Sirius followed.

"Once you have it and bring it back here an' wrap it in the invisibility cloak we'll be lending you, then put in under the lion statue." finished James

"Were do I get the cloak and what time should I leave?" said Aeryn, trying to sound like one of the slick muggle ladies in the spy movies she saw with her dad back at home.

"Midnight" said Sirius as James revealed the invisibility cloak from a pocket in his school cloak.

"Take care of this baby, it's very helpful in our… line of work" said James in a similar spy like matter.

Aeryn was impressed as she took the cloak, it was silky, and liquid like, weighing almost nothing.

"You'll have your book by tomorrow James" promised Aeryn as she stored the book.

"On a more cheerful and less _serious _subject" started James causing Aeryn to chuckledat the pun, "you wanna start a game of exploding snap?"

"Sure" said Sirius and Aeryn at the same time, and the games (and cheating) began.

Aeryn walked up to her empty dorm ready to prepare for tonight's task. It was about it was about 11:00 and she had just finished her load of homework, and decided to turn in before Lily, who had more classes.

It had been a fun afternoon; she and the marauders had played exploding snap for more then a half hour until the prefects came back, and Remus joined in. After that Sirius and Aeryn kicked their asses at it for another half hour, until Lily demanded they started working on homework. Since Remus agreed (and couldn't stand to lose against Aeryn any more due to their earlier argument), he managed to force the boys to stop playing, while Lily nagged Aeryn into getting started.

First Aeryn took out the cloak and hid it under her pillow. Next she changed into a plain black muggle shirt and matching skinny jeans, then after hanging her black cloak on the bed post she proceeded to cover herself in the bed covers and fake sleep until 12:00. About ten minutes later a groggy Lily came in, got ready and went to bed promptly. Aeryn grinned in the dark, so far so good.

Final after long minutes ticked by, the hands on the clock on the wall hit midnight, signaling for Aeryn to start task #1. With as much stealth as the 6 foot girl could manage she was able to get on her black cloak and grab the invisible-making one without a hitch. Unfortunately, right before she could throw the magical cloak around her, the floor creaked loudly waking up Lily.

"Aeryn!" yelped Lily as she was startled into consciousness.

"Shit!" cursed Aeryn as she managed to hide the invisibility cloak before Lily could spot it.

Lily examined Aeryn, fully aware that her friend looked ready to go, "Where the hell do you think your going!" she said with uncontained fury.

Aeryn took a deep breath, "Lily please understand, I need to go do something for the marauders, I swear its not going to hurt, or bother anybody I just need to do a quick task."

Lily flinched at the mention of James's little gang "Aeryn I know your new, but you know as well as I it's against the rules, and as a prefect I—"

But Aeryn cut her off and gave her a pleading look, "Please Lils" she begged, somehow knowing by instinct it would work.

Her instinct was right, the combination of her words and the look in Aeryn's eletric blue eyes made something click inside Lily, and she gave in. "Fine, but I don't know how you expect to be friends with me and those idiots" she said rudely to let Aeryn know this wouldn't be that last time they would discuss this.

Aeryn nodded her head in thanks and as she walked out the dorm. But before she put James's cloak on she whispered "I'll find a way Lily, I swear I will." making a rush of adrenaline go through her. As she walked through the portrait hole, her mouth couldn't help but to curve into a determined grin. Mission is a go, 007, she thought excitedly.

* * *

(my Ramblings)(and please make a review with any comments or complaints)

Yes Aeryn's dad's secret hobbie is watchin muggle movies so he managed to get a small tv working :)

YES MAD EYE HAS A BROTHER! I did research and apparently in mythology Nestor is the brother of Alastar so I used it 'cause I always like getting all reseach-a-fied for some names. Also I just though id' mention think going to use a lot of the random harry potter characters/their siblings to randomly to explain a few things, so people know how I think the origin of such and such came. :)

No, the little click between lily and aeryn was NOT lesbian so don't even go there.

And also to my dear vamp friend who I have told some of my plot twists to, DON'T GIVE ANYTHING AWAY IN YOU REVIEWs, for Remus Lupin's sake! (or I guess Sirius's sake for you)

Man I just looked over my other rambles an crap do I spell bad. Sorry bout that heheh

Oh and yay I'm sick whoo hoo how unfun!*sneezes all over you*

WOLF, LAURA WOLF…. OUT! *spy music plays*


	7. The Apples, the Pranks and the Closet

It was Wednesday two days after Aeryn had the first task assigned to her. It was hard to remember the details, since the mission was pretty strait forward, and it went perfectly other that one mistake.

Unfortunately when she had finally found the old, decaying red volume, splattered with things she'd rather not think about, she forgot to put it under the cloak to read in the moonlight, and a very pesky cat just happened to come by and see the floating book. But of course, she had the cloak and as soon as she saw the almost glowing orange eyes of the cat she hid in beneath James's cloak and scurried away, leaving Mrs. Norris to return to her master.

But the first task was over now, she had put the cloak and book where James had requested, and during breakfast he had given her a short nod to imply a success.

Ever since then James and Sirius still hadn't given her a new task, but Aeryn didn't worry about that today… she had a little challenge planed out.

After a long day of lessons, the two red head friends, Aeryn and Lily walked back to the common room.

"Hurry up Lily" grumbled Aeryn who was trying to speed walk.

"What's the rush, its not like you to want to do your homework?"

"Don't worry that's not my plan, I'll see you at the common room!" yelled Aeryn as she started sprinting down the hall, an impressive feat seeing she was carry a heavy bag of books.

When she finally got through the portrait room she dropped her books off at the table and went up to her room. From under her bed she got two wizard's chess, chess sets, a wizard chess board and from the table a large redish-yellow apple. Then she returned to the common room and set up the board, placing one chess set across from her and the other one, her set, next to her with the apple and waited.

As she sat there waiting, an evil grin on her face, students began streaming through the portrait hole. Then a few minutes after she set up James and Sirius walked in with Remus trailing behind.

"Hey Remus!" she yelled over to him, "I challenge you to a wizard's chess game!"

Remus froze at the sound of his name and looked over at Aeryn and then the chess sets "WHAT THE? HOW"D YOU GET MY CHESS SET" he said emphasizing his words by flailing his hands, making everyone stared at him.

"I went into your room, where else would I get it," she said, then after a second pause she continued "So is that a yes or are you to wussy?"

Remus got his normal face together and then with a mischievous glint in his eye, he replied "Oh ho ho, I wouldn't be so sure of yourself missy I am the wizard's chess master!"

Aeryn took a giant bite from her apple as they sat down across from each other "We'll see about that."

Two hours, it had been two hours since they began, thought Lily in wonder. The game was very slow paced, minutes ticked by and with them just glaring at the board, yet for some reason they had attracted a large group that was still, after two hour circled around the board. Lily could tell there was a pretty big difference between the two.

When ever Aeryn ordered a piece to destroy something there was normally a big show that included the little piece jumping and slicing, and all her pieces and Aeryn herself, would cheer loudly, while Remus would just pretend he couldn't hear anything. But when ever Remus's side destroyed a piece it was quick and a lot quieter, Remus hardy made a noise, just a big smirk that was almost worse then cheering. His victory normally resulted in all of Aeryn's pieces to start cursing rudely, making her take out her anger by trying to shut them up.

Lily went back to watching them, from what she could tell it seemed like Remus had the upper hand, making Aeryn gnaw her sixth apple to the core.

"Eating apples make you smarter?" he smirk motioning to the six apple core lying on the table.

Aeryn started to give Remus and evil glare, but then her face turned into a grin.

"Yes they do Remus, check." She said as she usher her knight to the check position, not even bothering to tell it the exact location.

This caused an uproar from Aeryn's side (though most of them were on the sidelines in pieces), and a few quiet curses on Remus's side (probably learnt from Aeryn's pieces).

Remus's brow furrowed he trying to look for a good way to recover, but there weren't any options, and he sighed and pushed his king down on it's knees with his finger.

"Good game, you win"

As soon as the king began to kneel the captured pieces that had been broken began to fix them selves then marched over to the boxes, some making faces or rude gestures at the others.

As the board began to clear, so did the group, there were about fifteen minutes to dinner

"That, was the hardest game of chess I had ever played, well done" congratulated Aeryn

"I would have to agree" said Remus with a nod.

There was an awkward silence, and Lily decided she wanted to go to the dining hall early, and soon after Sirius and James went to their dorm, probably to look at the animagus book for a few minutes.

"Errrm" they both started at the same time.

"Oh you go ahead" Aeryn apologized

"No, no you go its fine" countered Remus

"Fine I just wanted to say I'm sorry about Monday, looking back I was rather rude."

"Hey unfair I was trying to apologize!" said Remus "I was the one who should be sorry; I not only questioned your personal decision but insulted it!"

"Yeah, but I made much too big of a deal of it!" insisted Aeryn.

"So I guess were on equal terms then?" asked Remus

"Yes, but I still beat you at chess."

"Those darned apples!"

About fifteen minutes later almost everyone was sitting at there seats, and since there were no announcements, as the clock struck 5:00 the food promptly arrived.

Due to the recent truce Aeryn and Remus were peacefully sitting across from each other, on Remus right sat James then Sirius, and on Aeryn's right (left to Remus they are facing each other) Lily sat with a disdainful look on her face, which for once had nothing to do with James, apparently Aeryn had made the mistake of sitting next to one of Lily's ex-friends, and now current head-gossip, but before they could move the rest of the mauraders settled down to congratulate Aeryn so they had not choice, but to put one seat distance between them and Susan Elyra, the ex-friend, who was now across from Sirius

"Your not eating anything Aeryn?" asked James as he stuffed his moth with some pork chops

Remus chuckled "I think she had too many apples."

"Yeah but at least they made be smarter!" defended Aeryn.

"Oh really?" Remus reached over the table to a bowl of apples and took a huge bite.

But what was unknown to him, Aeryn had manged to jinx the apple from under the table and now Remus's face was glowing bright blue.

"Eh" he said with a mouthful of apple as he noticed his nose was blue, "I shought wesh had a trush!"

"Sorry" Aeryn smirked, "I though James would eat it since he needs to gain brain cell to equal up to a mentally ill iguana." And then she proceeded to also jinx James's pork chop.

"I don't need—" but before continuing James bit into his pork and his face also began to glow blue. "Uh fairsh" he muttered as he chewed on the tender meat.

Sirius, who was currently unjinxed was cracking up so much he had his head under the table to muffle the sound, taking the chance for a grand finally Aeryn asked, "Sirius, What the hell you doning under there? Trying to look up Susan's skirt?"

Sirius tried to protest by getting out from under the table, but Susan was quicker and jet of light out of her wand as she said "Incedo Caecus!", causing a blindfold to appear and wrap around his head, he tried to get it off but it would budge.

"Hey how do u get it off?" he tried yelling at her, but she was already angrily walking out of the great hall.

"Off" chuckled Lily and with another flash of light the blindfold was off, leaving behind a black mark were it had been.

Sirius looked into his spoon touching the black mark delicately "Im not going to be able to pass this off as the marking of a legendary magical item, to impress the ladys, huh?" he said glumly.

"Unless it's a magical raccoon" snickered James,

"I wouldn't be taking blue face!"

"Hey Aeryn," said Lily, ignoring the fighting boys, "I'm going to start my homework" and without really waiting for a reply, lily left the table and join a tall boy with greasy hair, who had just got up from the Slytherintable.

Aeryn watched her go and sighed, while behind her James, still blue in the face, was making threats about what he would do to Snape after dinner with Sirius.

Then she turned around to Remus who's face wasn't blue anymore and he said "Well Aeryn you've managed to trick three Marauders members in a row, if that doesn't get you in I don't know what will!"

Aeryn blushed and thanked him, while Sirius and James stopped scheming and congratulated her, she appreciated it, but the truth was, Sirius had told her during passing period that the first mission was all it took, so according to everyone but Remus she was already in. But still she smiled at the thought.

Aeryn slept peaceful on one of the cushioned chairs of the common room, an inked quill still in heard hand, and still wearing her uniform. On the table below her was an almost finished history of magic assignment. Yesterday, while planning on how best to set up a good challenge for Remus, she had saved her homework for later, and then went to bed early to catch up on lost sleep from the task before, believing she had plenty of time.

But she hadn't managed to do all her work as fast as she thought, it was at two in the morning when she fell asleep and she still had a conclusion paragraph to write, and as if to 'help' the clock struck three. Things weren't looking up for Aeryn.

But then her luck changed.

Remus woke up to a grumbling stomach, he wasn't she why he was hungry, and then it came back to him, he had been having a dream about apples.

Quietly he chuckled to himself on how their newest member's brain food had influenced his dream and decided to go on a "patrol" to the kitchens and get him self a nice juicy apple. Hey he could be bad once in while if he wanted. Quickly he got on a pair of black sweat pants, and black shirt, then he made sure to pin his shiny perfect badge on his chest, then grabbed his cloak and left.

As he was about to open the portrait hole the noise of a loud deep breath startled him and he quickly grabbed his wand out of his back pocket and defended himself…. against a sleeping red head.

Remus wiped his bangs away in relief (only to have them come back and cover his face) and put his wand back sighing, it was only Aeryn, and she appeared to be fast asleep.

As he approached her he notice she must have fallen asleep doing homework, and being the nerd he was he quickly went to examine her essay. The writing was kind of messy, and she seemed only write as much as needed, as he notice a few errors and mix ups on the date, he proceed to correct them. But Aeryn, who wasn't in as deep of sleep as he thought, awakened at one on his movement and unsure of who he was, pounce on him, fist punching.

"oww! What the hell Aeryn!" he tried to say quietly as he pushed her onto the chair.

"Ooops" mumbled Aeryn as she shook off the last bits of sleepiness.

"Bad dream?"

"Yeah"

"So what are you doing here so late?" asked Aeryn as she looked at her watch.

"I got hungry and was going to sneak off to get a bite"

"Mind if I join you?" asked Aeryn as her stomach grumbled in agreement.

"Sure one second" said Remus as he took the quill from her hand and bent down to finish her essay; it wasn't terribly hard to imitate her messy hand writing.

"You don't-" started Aeryn, but Remus finished up and interrupted her "Shall we go get some apples ma'am?" he said with a mischievous sparkle in his gray eyes.

Aeryn answer with a laugh and the headed out of the portrait hole, Remus flashing his badge.

As they walked out Aeryn couldn't comment on the beautiful moon that was curved into a bold 'c' shape.

"Hey the moon kinda looks like a giant piece of cheese that someone took a bite out of!" commented Aeryn as the walked down some stairs into a hallway with huge windows.

"Really I was thinking more of a giant apple that you must have bitten when you were hungry!" said Remus, making them both laugh.

"Hey since went do I eat moldy white apples?" defended Aeryn as she pushed him into a window and they both laughed again, oblivious to the fact that a certain someone was trailing them.

"Oh hehehe, what do we got here, two love birds on a moonlit stroll? Tut tut tut naughty children." Cackled peeves from behind them.

The both turned around in horror, and weakly Remus showed his badge. "I… er giving Miss Aeryn a… erm tour Peeves, she is new here."

This made Peeves cackle ever harder "more like your going to find a empty class room to snog in, something I can't have, FILTCH! OH FILCH!" he yelled.

Both the werewolves sprinted down the hallway but its walls had no doors, so they turned right at the next corner.

"In here!" said Remus as he got into a rather small and very crowded broom cupboard. But as luck would have it Remus's wand witch had been in his back pocket fell out when Aeryn jumped in on to of him and as the closed the doors it hit the floor.

"That was close" mumbled Remus, his warm breath hitting Aeryn's face making her notice she was on top of him. In alarm she tried to get up, but only managed to hit her head on a broomstick, and knock the entire contents of the closet down on the, crushing the side of her face into his chest.

"Damn" she mumbled "I'm sorry."

Remus tried to move his hand to get her hair out of his face but they were stuck, so instead he shook his head until the hair was off. "Its ok he mumbled blushing as bright as her hair.

"Can you move" she asked turning her face so her head faced his, and tilted her head up, giving her a view of his chin and cheek in greater detail then she expected.

"No, and if to add I think this is the new automatically locking doors, cause that broom on your neck is the newest Zapper 1000, costing around 40 gallons.

"Shit" cussed Aeryn as she madly blushed, "But wait, then how did we get in?"

"I'm not sure but its not letting me get out" he said as he started to push the door with his body, which only managed to whack the side of his face into the top of Aeryn's head when he ricocheted off the hard wooden door.

"Oww my head" muttered Aeryn into his chest.

"Sorry had to try again"

Again she tried to adjust herself, but she could and she would have to stick with laying on his chest with her legs on either side of him, an extremely uncomfortable and awkward position.

So the continued with another long awkward silence as the broom closet grew warm from there blushing.

"Err, would you mind my inquiring a few questions seeing as we're stuck?" asked Remus shyly.

"Yeah might as well, you do know we'll be stuck in here all morning possibly longer."

He nodded the took a deep breath, the sweet scent of Aeryn filled his nose, it was very natural, like a fresh pine forest.

"Uh, to start the awkward questions, why do you smell like a pine forest, have you been exploring the forbidden forest or something?"

"uhhh no, not really?" said aeryn in confusion

"Oh" he said rather blankly

Since they were on the subject of smells, just for the heck of it, Aeryn decided to take a deep breath through her nose, and too her surprise Remus actually had a very strong, pleasant scent, it reminded her of apples.

"On that subject, why do you smell like apples. Some sorty of shampoo to make you smarter?" asked Aeryn curiously

"Ummm.. i am not sure why" said Remus.

Then it was Aeryn's turn to let out a small, "oh"

Remus cleared his throat, making Aeryn's nose vibrate." It's probably because were both werewolves we both have a very unique smell that stands out from humans, possibly the reason why werewolves don't attack each other during transformation" he said to cover up for the awkward questions.

Aeryn tried to nod but she just managed to push her face into Remus neck, "crap"  
she cursed, but it didn't help as Remus shivered her warm breath brushed against his neck. We need something to distract our good forsaken hormones if we want to survive the night, he thought.

"Um Aeryn, I know this is a rather personal question, but how were you… how were you bit?" he asked nervously.

"Mhh. That's a good question, I'm not very sure, all I remember is the pain, everything else is blurry, even my memories before the attack." She started, "My parents say its because of how I was bitten, apparently he clawed me next back and bit my shoulder. Some of the venom from the bite got into my neck, and then my brain before it reached my heart, healers say there's a chance that causes memory loss."

The theory was rather complicated but it made since, the brain was normally the last place the venom spread, without it having dominance over most of the nerves it could mess up the head. Then he looked down at the broom on Aeryn's neck, if he squinted enough he could make out a long thin scar, making it seem all the more real.

'That sucks" was all he could lamely respond as he caught sight of the terrible bite on Aeryn's slightly exposed shoulder.

"So.. how 'bout you?" asked Aeryn

Remus let out a said sigh, "I was bit when I was around seven, by the infamous Fenir Grayback." said Remus as paused to catch his breath, letting him hear Aeryn let out a little gasp. "He was hired by He Who Must Not Be Named, after my father offended that bastard, you wanna know why? Dumbledore told me, it was the most idiotic reason." he said coldly making Aeryn do a little involuntary flinch at his anger.

"Did you know You Know Who's real name is Tom Riddle, and by a freaking coincidence that just happens to be the first two names of my father, Tom Riddle Lupin!" he shouted. "And not only did I get bit, he killed my younger brother." he said with a forced even tone

Aeryn bumped her head on something as she recoiled in surprise, and her eyes began to water.

"Freaking eyes" she muttered.

"Aeryn? Aeryn?" said Remus extremely shocked; he would have sworn she wasn't the person to cry.

"I sorry for your loss…" she said silently

"its fine.."

"G'night Remus" was all she could muster to say and after a few moments of silence she drifted off to sleep, and to the nightmare she always had once a month, the nightmare of pain, the nightmare of her biting. But in all the haze and all the blurry memories, she saw a face, one that had never been in her dreams before, and it was crying silently. What she didn't know was she must have had her eyes partly open, because the Remus in the closet, the one in which he was being crush by a load of brooms, was lying awaking, attempting not to cry (and failing).

(my Rambling)

ok this is gunna be short i gotts sleep, but i just wanna mention i was inspired byy applles so thats why they have a bigish part, i meanapples always seem to have these random parts in story, like when the main char is just randomly munching on one, or he/she exclaimes over the too high prices of a bag of apple at a market, ok im done with apples.

POOR REMIE! ok i wanna apologize to my fan who i knda said i would get this out early to but its super late and i must go, hence any mistakes so yeah i gotta go

Wolf out! (that lacked enthusiasm)


	8. Sev's Question, And a Trip To the Shack

Aeryn awoke from her nightmare, slightly stiff, and unable to move.

"Ugh, where am I?" she muttered sleepily.

"Good morning... I think" replied the warm and slightly squishy thing below her.

"Oh" grumbled Aeryn as all of last nights events came back to her head, and she realized why she was stiff.

"I'm sorry about getting on such a depressing and painful subject last night. It must of givin you a nightmare… I thought I heard you whimper a little."

"Yes, I was rather out of character last night, I guess my hormones got caught up in all the heat." Aeryn admitted.

Remus chuckled darkly, "yeah you weren't the only one."

Then for a couple of minutes they had a silence, it wasn't awkward this time, but more of a thinking time acknowledged by both sides.

"So," started Aeryn to make conversation "Do you have any idea of what time it is?"

"I have my watch on, since I hardly ever take it off, but my hand is crushed under a case, most likely containing beater bats, from the size and weight." Remus replied as he started to wiggle his watch hand around

"Gah" exclaimed Aeryn in surprise, as she flinched rather roughly.

"What is it?"

"I felt something, on my arm, I thing it was your hand."

"Oops, sorry I'll stop now."

--

Todd Barley was excited. This morning, at 6:00 to be exact he would be having private Quidditch lessons. Being a first year Ravenclaw he wasn't aloud to bring a broom, but since his parents were connected with some pretty good sources, the school had a complimentary Zapper 1000 for him! And to make things better, he had found the key to the thief proof closet it was stored in, so he wouldn't have to leave it open like last time.

Nearly skipping down the hall, he made the last turn then faced the closet. To happy to notice the wand lying on the ground, he took out the key and opened the lock.

There were many crashing noises and bangs as the entire contents of the broom closet spilled out in front of poor little Todd, who had just managed to get out of the way, including two fifth year students who were using some words his mom had forbidden him to say.

After a few seconds the older students managed to get up, and the scary tall ginger haired female who hand managed to keep her wand in her hand despite it being stuck in the closet, literally growled at him.

Huffing and puffing from the recent excitement Todd managed to stammer "You, you were doing it in the closet?!" he finish with a terrified squeal.

Aeryn and Remus froze; astonished at the little boys words, but then Remus found his wand, picked it up, and got a hold of himself.

Doing his best to look big and threatening (which no one but a first year would be terrified by) Remus stomped over to where the little Ravenclaw was and stuck his wand near the kids temple, which was about as high as Remus's belly button.

"Yes were we snogging if that is what you were implying, do you have a problem with that? Because if you tell anyone ANYTHING about this I'll make sure you don't have any brain left to imply anything else, got it kid!" he growled pushing his wand a little harder against the kid's head to prove his point, while Aeryn crossed her arms across her chest, looking pissed, behind him.

"Yes, sir" Todd stuttered as he did a mini salute, and then fled down the corridor.

"Hey kid! Don't you need your stuff?" said Remus who was back to his normal nice self.

Stopping in mid-run Todd turned around ran back, and got the case contained the different balls, then the Zapper 1000, watching the two tall fifth years the whole time, nervous they would change there minds and do something bad to him now. Then without another sound he started running down the corridor.

"Why'd you have to say we were kissing?" muttered Aeryn who still looked a little pissed.

"Well judging by his first assumption, I doubt he would believe anything else." replied Remus smartly.

"Well as long as that kid keeps his trap shut its not like it matters to me." Aeryn grumbled wearily.

"Soooo….." started Remus.

"Well for starters what time is it?' asked Aeryn as she leaned against the wall.

"Oh right" mumbled Remus as he looked as his watch "Two minutes to six, so we were stuck in there for approximately three hours, and we have about one hour and forty minutes until breakfast."

"Hmm, ok sounds fine. How 'bout to avoid suspicion we go to the common room at different times, you first then in about an hour I'll come."

"It's a good plan, Aeryn, but who exactly are we avoiding suspicion from, should we mention this accident to anyone?"

Aeryn chuckled darkly, "Unless you want the whole school thinking we were snogging in a broom closet, or even worse, I suggest we keep this to ourselves… But it's your choice Remus."

"Is it really?" Remus said slightly confused.

"No! Of course not idiot!" said Aeryn as she whacked him on the head lightly and rolled her eyes. "Do you really think either of us would want that?!."

Remus didn't reply, instead he couldn't help but to think, do _I_ want that? He sighed wearily, the lack of sleep finally taking its toll, then waved goodbye and headed up to the Gryffindor common room.

The rest of the day went rather well from then on, Remus had told his friends he had been doing perfect rounds while Aeryn told Lily she had gone out for a jog. Other then being a lot more tired then usual, the rest of the day went on with out a problem, though no one seemed to notice the new level of understanding between Remus and Aeryn.

--

It had been weeks since any real excitement for Aeryn, of course there were pranks, and jinxing Ravenclaws(Aeryn seemed to have a odd grudge against them) in the halls, but today would be different. The weather was cold, and everyone was bundling up, as the freezing October wind came a day early, causing students to have to bundle up if they stepped outside the shielding walls of the school.

Remus and Aeryn now walked down the halls toward their art class, a warm and comfortable from the nice breakfast they had eaten.

"Tonight's the big night, huh?" said Aeryn somewhat sadly.

Remus sighed and nodded, "Yup, it'll be the first full moon of the school year."

"I knew it, I've just been have that feeling… that…"

"That weird feeling in your bones." finished Remus for her.

"Yeah, it's almost like their heating up, all they need now is the fuel to burst into flames. And if that isn't enough while everyone's freezing their butts off, I feel like a giant heater."

Remus groaned in agreement as they approached a red door, "its days like these, that I wish I could just blow up the moon."

"If only." chuckled Aeryn rather grimly as they opened the door, "But would that really help?"

--

Lily smiled, and let out a happy sigh as she finished one of her many essays. It was about dinner time right now but she had told Aeryn after their last class that she would be missing dinner and instead studying with Severus, because they had the same subjects. To her surprise Aeryn nodded without a complaint, even looking a little bit relieved.

'Why do you looks so relieved?' Lilt had asked.

'Nothing, I was just planning....... to sit next to James, so I was worried you'd be...... uh alone'

Lily looked over to the seat next to her were Sev was, they had chosen the empty classroom next to the library to study in, because they could talk without being yelled at, but it was still close to the library.

"Done yet Sev?"

"Last word… and… Done!" he said cheerfully and then rolled up the essay and stored it somewhere safe.

"Do you want to take a break before we move on, we've been working for nearly two hours straight." asked Lily

"Just what I was thinking. Now Lily, there's something I need to discuss with you." He said, sounding a little too much like a concerned parent.

"What?" sighed Lily; though she had a feeling she knew just what.

"It's about that O'Connell girl, she's with those blasted marauders you know, but for some reason she's still you friend."

"Yeah, I know that Sev but Aeryn's different from the others."

"Really she doesn't seem very different when she walks around the halls with them jinxing every kid they see, like it's their duty, and that corrupt perfect Lupin following them around like their body guard."

"Sev," sighed Lily, she knew he would be ranting about this sooner or later. "Firstly, Lupin is not corrupt, just rather exceptive when it comes to his friends, and he's not the only one who has to do that some times." She said giving Snape a remember-when-I-saved-you-butt look.

Severus looked like he was about to say something, but Lily continued.

"Secondly, I have a feeling you wont have to worry about Aeryn being super ani-Slytheirn, she might not like you guys much because your from our 'enemy' house, or what-ever the crap. Instead I think she has some stupid family grudge against Ravenclaw, seeing that her mom went here and her behavior."

"Such as..?"

"During charms the Professor made a grave mistake, and made Aeryn partners with a Ravenclaw, I'm not sure what happened but the last thing I heard before they got a silencing charm placed on them, and were forced to write 'I will not fight for no apparent reason like a mad flesh eating worm', was Aeryn shouting "YEAH WELL MY FROG'S BUTT IS A THOUSAND TIMES SMARTER AND PRETTYER THEN YOU".

"Funny, but that still doesn't prove your point."

"Thirdly, Aeryn is very clever, she still wants to be friends with me, so I know she will behave herself, that crazy girl knows the perfect way to keep balance between goofing off and being my friend. Also I have a suspicion that it's possible, James might slowly begin to fall for her and her for him, and not only would they be happy but Aeryn would want get him into shape."

"That's a clever plan Lily"

"No Sev, it's **not** a plan. I'm **not** going to force it, just encourage it if it's what they want." said Lily who was a offended he thought of it as a plan, that made it sound like she was going to make them fall in love.

"History of magic time?" he suggested to ease the tension.

"Sure."

--

Aeryn followed Remus through Hogwarts. It was about dinner time, but in order to be safe, they were taking some secrete passage ways that Remus had memorized as a long time marauder.

"Honestly you should make a map for this place" muttered Aeryn as they went behind a completely unsuspicious tapestry that she would have never thought to conceal a passage.

"We're working on it, though our current progress isn't looking very good. Hogwarts is a tricky place, even for me"

After a couple more minutes they passed through door that was pretending to be a wall and were out on the grounds.

"Good timing the moon probably wont rise over those mountains for a good fifteen minutes" he said pointing at the mountains.

Aeryn nodded she could tell it was soon because her skin was already heating up, and her face was probably bright red like Remus's.

"Urrm here comes the awkward part," he started quietly so Aeryn just barely caught it, "Urm... you can store any unneeded articles of clothing in here." He said pointing at some thick bushes that were hiding a box.

Aeryn sighed, his embarrassment was rather cute. Then she took of her sweat shirt so she was only wearing a slightly ripped tank top and a pair of ragged shorts, and then put it in the box. She turned back to Remus she suddenly blushed (if it was possible to get her heated face a darker shade of red), because Remus had taken off his shirt, and was now putting it away.

His chest and back was decorated with many scars, along with his upper arms. It was kind of odd to see someone her age with so many scars, other than herself of course who also sported many. She had just never really thought about the fact that she wasn't alone in all the pain that came with being a werewolf. And though it seemed kind of wrong, it was oddly comforting to know this.

"Soo." said Aeryn who was pretty sure she had been caught staring at his chest, even though she had been innocently zoning out.

"This way" said Remus

Silently the pair headed towards and evil looking tree, then Remus stopped a good could feet away, making Aeryn crash into him.

"Oof sorry."

"Its ok, should have warned you, this tree doesn't like people very much so we have to go and press that spot there," he said pointing at a knot in the wood, "to make it freeze so it doesn't whack the crap out of us."

"Mmmh sounds pleasant."

Remus chuckled then went to search for a long branch since they had left there wands back at the dorms.

"Here we go." said Remus as he lifted a long branch up and poked the knot of wood.

The tree, which had been shaking rather threateningly since they came, froze and Remus headed down to a small hole, part way in the tree and part way in the ground.

"It's a little tight for people our height, but I think we'll manage." Remus said as he began crawling down the small hole.

Remus was right about the squeeze, Aeryn could feel the rough walls of the tunnel brush against her burning skin, but the rock was cool so it felt kind of nice.

"Here we are, welcome to the shrieking shack." said Remus as he helped Aeryn out of the tunnel into a small dusty messy living room.

All the windows were dirty, and a few were boarded up, the only view outside was a medium sized hole in one of them. There was a small broken table in the center along with matching, and also broken cabinet then was crumbling against one of the battered looking walls. Two of the walls were empty of windows and broken furniture, and they created a corner that looked like it had a little bit of dried blood on it.

"Err, nice place."

"Yeah, sorry, I'm not a very tidy wolf." He chuckled.

"Ok here," Remus said as he led her into a battered hallway, and opened the door to the right, "Is your transforming room, when your done you can come out to the living room, I'll be in this one" he finshed opening the door to his room.

Aeryn took a deep breath, "I'll see you soon then."

"Heh heh, yeah, I hope this ends up going well."

Aeryn walked into her 'room' and looked around. It walls all plain wooden wall accept a small, uncomfortable looking cot that had been crammed against the far wall. Deciding the floor looked more comfortable Aeryn closed the door and sat in the middle of the floor, it was time to wait for the pain.

Aeryn half howled half screamed as her skin felt like it was ripping apart, in room across the hall her ears, that were becoming pointed and wolf like, could hear similar calls of pain. Then she started growing, and a tail started forming along with fur and claws.

After much growling and howling (and a bit of yowling), the transformation was finished, and the physical pain ended, signaling for the mental pain to kick in.

Aeryn howled again as she noticed how small the room was, she wanted to rip it apart. Furious she crashed through the door and ran into the living room on all for legs, brushing her orange fur against the hall that now seemed much smaller. But before she could unleash her fury on the wall, a howl sounded from Remus's room. A door creaked open harshly then was slammed, and a wolfish Remus stumbled out, his face contorted with pain.

Aeryn froze and studied him; he was larger, and his thin pelt was golden colored. Also his dark grey eyes looked paler and had a hint of yellow.

And before she could greet him, a wave a anger rushed over her, so she turned to start clawing at the empty wall.

Remus whimpered from behind her, he was gripping himself so hard he was staring to bleed, but it was the only thing to stop him from going into a rage like Aeryn. Slowly on all four limbs he stalked over to the bloody corner near Aeryn and started shaking violently.

_Aeryn... _he mumbled

But Aeryn couldn't hear him and was now punching and whacking her head into the wall, causing her knuckles to go raw, and a blood from a cut over her left eye started blocking her vision.

_Aeryn. Stop._ He mumbled again, the smell oh her blood was getting to his head and he was now kneeling and holding himself, which only caused him to cut into his sides.

_STOP!_ He howled, and he jumped up and pushed her down snarling. His claws cutting into her wrists and scratching her leg.

The sudden attack arouse an even greater fury in Aeryn and she grabbed his arm got up and smashed his shoulder into the wall.

Remus howled in pain, awakening the human part of Aeryn.

_No..! _She wined at him in horror. Crouching on the ground in front of him, in a submissive position, she whimpered and nosed his arm.

_Remus. Remus…? Sorry! No—_

Remus clawed the floor with his good hand and looked up at Aeryn, who's head and hands were bleeding heavily along with a few scratches along her body. His shoulder had been crushed and dislocated from the blow, and it made him want to scream in pain, but on the positive side, now he could move or hurt himself with his arm.

_Calm. Down._ He sighed and did what could be considered a wolf version of a grim laugh.

_At. Least. Now I. Can't hurt. Myself._

After that the rest of the night wasn't that bad, other then the occasional temptation to bite themselves or claw at their sides.

_Moon is. Setting._ grumbled Aeryn.

_Back to. Rooms._ replied Remus as he stumbled over to his room on two unstable legs, sensing Aeryn was following behind him.

Aeryn limped over to her room; he senses were starting to go back to human. She looked around and noticed the door was in pieces, and immediately regretted smashing it. Once she was in she did her best to grab her cloths, which had a charm that allowed them to stay pretty intact, so they were fine to wear once she was human again.

And then Aeryn felt a tingly sensation run down her spine, and she began to turn human again.

After the long and painful process of becoming human finished, Aeryn quickly put on her clothes, extremely glad Remus had his door closed. After she finished she walked out into the living room, it was a bloody mess. Slowly she sat down on the floor, and waited for Remus.

The door to Remus's room opened and he walked out, his arm covered in blood along with his face and sides.

"Oh damn Remus I'm soo sorry!" yelped Aeryn as she got up and limped over to him.

"It's fine, I wasn't very gentle when I stopped you." He rasped motioning to the cuts he had caused.

Aeryn nodded and the both got down on the ground to do the slow and painful process of crawling out of the tunnel, so Hagrid and Madam Pomfry could take them to the hospital wing.


	9. Passionate Rants

That morning, Tuesday, October 1st, Lily woke up chilly dark gray skies, and the harsh wind blowing against her window. As she stretched Lily noticed the bed next to her, the one that belonged to her fellow red head, was empty, other then a small note, neatly folded.

Lily let out an annoyed sigh, that bed was empty much too many times. Despite the fact that Lily knew Aeryn was always stirring up trouble with the marauders, she had only actually been caught once, and was only given a warning. But unlike her the boys of the marauders were quite the opposite and had plenty of detentions, even Remus once.

After she was done stretching she forced herself to get off her butt and go check out the letter on Aeryn's bed, to see what excuse she had put down this time.

But instead of Aeryn's untidy scrawl, she saw Professor McGonagall's neat script.

_Dear Mrs. Lily Evans,_

_I have been told to inform you that your friend Mrs. Aeryn O'Connell was injured and submitted to the hospital wing last night. Courtesy of Professor Dumbledore, I will be allowing you visiting time during your first two periods. The professors of those classes have been informed and will give you an extra day on any newly assigned work should you choose to take this offer._

_Sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

_P.S. I have arranged for Mr. Potter and Company to come after classes for your own convenience. _

Despite the situation Lily couldn't help but smile at the Professors wisdom, "A bloody genius she is" she muttered as she started getting ready in a hurry.

Quickly Lily put on her uniform so she wouldn't have to come back for it, then managed to make her bed head mildly presentable with a flick of her wand and a quick spell. Next she scurried down the halls to the dining hall for a quick portable breakfast to bring up to the hospital wing.

After taking a piece of toast, two pancakes, and some hash browns; a little more then she would normally have incase Aeryn wanted some (which was almost guaranteed) Lily dashed up to the hospital wing holding the food with magic.

The small task of getting some of Aeryn's favorite foods had distracted Lily temporarily, but as she reached the door, she was almost afraid of what might have happened.

Lily took a deep breath as she opened the door with one hand, balancing the food with a charm, as she entered the wing. Almost all the beds were empty accept for two, Aeryn's and Remus's, which were side by side up against the stain glass window.

As she walked in Aeryn's bright hair was the only thing that caught Lily's attention, through her tear filled eyes.

To any normal wizard or witch the injuries were pretty bad, but coming from a muggle family they seemed even worse, though really this was better than a normal transformation for Aeryn (and Remus).

Carefully Lily set down the food on the table next to Aeryn who was sleeping peacefully, or unconscious. Then as Lily controlled her emotions and reached out to pat Aeryn's hand bellow some bandaged gashes on the injured girl's arm, she finally realized Remus was also in the room, but what she didn't notice is that he had been pretending(and rather badly at that) to sleep ever since she had arrived.

Less then thirty seconds after Lily sat down, a young Madame Pomfery, who was generally new to working at Hogwarts, came in to see the visitor.

"Oh Dear, don't worry Lily, it's not as bad is it looks she'll make a full recovery Sunday, and should be able to be back to school on Thursday or Friday with a few bandages." Comforted Madame Pomfery

"Ahh, thank Merlin… But what happened?"

"Well Miss O'Connell was conscious for a while before getting knocked out and from what we could gather, last night while getting fresh air due to an upset stomach Aeryn was attacked by a wild Scottbozz from behind."

Lily nodded Scottbozzes were giant lizard like creatures, which were a new discovery due to illegal cross breeding between two rare creatures known as a Scott-koo and a Bozzin. It had gained the ability of teleportation from its Scott-koo side, and lizard like appearance from the Bozzin, making extremely deadly, oh and its razor claws weren't very friendly either.

"So what happened to Lupin?" asked Lily, not noticing how he froze slightly at his mention.

"Ahh we believe while he was patrolling he fell down a couple flights of stairs onto a very unhappy cat."

"Oh"

Remus sighed in his 'sleep', Aeryn had beat him at Wand, Cloak and Stone,(wizard version of Rock, Paper, Scissors, but based off of one of Beetle Bard's children's tales) and got the cool cover story first.

"Ok now I'm going to breakfast a doubt there will be any trouble here. And don't worry I'm sure Aeryn will be delighted at that wonderful meal you brought."

After a few minutes Aeryn woke up to the delicious smell of pancakes, toast and hash browns.

"Ahhh is that heaven I smell?" mumbled Aeryn as she stirred awake trying to reach for the food  
"Is food ALL you can think about! You had me worried sick!" complained Lily as she slapped Aeryn's hand away gently.

"Nice to see you too, food please?" said Aeryn with a hint of humor.

Lily grumbled and gave Aeryn a fork and the pancakes, "Here are your instruments of doom, use them wisely."

Aeryn' mouth curved into a smile as she stuffed a piece of pancake into her mouth, "Lily, make a joke? I must have woken into an alternate reality!"

"Ha ha ha you wish!" said Lily as she took another fork and started to get a piece of hash brown.

"Wait not too many!!"

"Many wha…?"

"Save some hash browns for my froggy, Patrick, I always give him some on Mondays…but I had too much on my mind."

"You mean that frog that jumped on my head?" asked Lily as she remembered that night on the train.

"The 'ery shame un'" said Aeryn through a mouthful of pancake.

"Hmmph. I used to like catching frogs with my dad when I was little." said Lily somewhat sadly.

"Used to?" asked Aeryn before stuffing another piece of pancake into her mouth.

"My father died two years ago, but really I grew out of the frog thing before that." said Lily with as much of a composed face as she could manage.

Aeryn choked on her food on her food then spit it out in a rubbish bin.

"Oh dang, I'm sorry for prying."

"No, it's nice to tell someone, hey do you mind if I rant a bit, it feels nice talking about it." asked Lily.

"Go 'head, It'd be my pleasure to listen."

Lily nodded in thanks and then began, "He was a muggle car salesmen, and was terribly good at it. He could convince just about anyone to buy a car, actually to do almost anything really. The only one he couldn't convince was me, oh and my crazy nanna I guess for some things. Dad always said it was 'cause I shared his genes, but mum believed it was my 'speacial gift' or something, in fact she wasn't half as surprised as I was when I discovered my powers."

Remus rolled over, trying not to be too loud. He hated not being able to do anything, he didn't want to eavesdrop on his fellow prefect's personal life, it just wasn't right.

"My powers came later then most, I honestly had no signs of it before I turned ten, but when they came they were powerful, and I'd never seen my parents so happy and proud. I felt bad for my older sis' though as soon as I got my powers they kinda expected her to have some too, I guess we did truly understand I was the only Even to have them."

"That's why despite all the mean things 'tuney says to me I try not to get mad, I mean how would I feel to be the nonmagical one."

"Wow that sounds so complicated, compared to you my past is hardly anything interesting." lied Aeryn, well it was only a half lie, the only interesting thing only happened every other full moon, the rest was just old muggle movies, books and a little spell casting.

"Heh, yeah."

They had a silence for a few seconds before the door opened and a girl walked in.

"Um.. Aeyrn O'Connell?" she said

"Oh hi Iris, were right over here." replied Lily somewhat awkwardly to the Slytheirn .

Iris, who was in some of there classes and the only other person in the werewolves' art class, walked over to where the girls were sitting, and then began. "Err, during my break I ran in to Professor Moody, we have a new sketch assignment the theme is 'muggle fears' he forgot to assign it yesterday so yeah.. Well I do hope you get well, it's always a pleasure to have you in class. Oh and don't forget to tell Lupin. Bye." She said quickly then left.

"She's a nice girl, Iris Selwyn, right?" asked Aeryn.

Lily made a little snort, "Don't let her trick you, she's a nasty little bee with quite a sting if she wants. She thinks she so great with her pure blood, good grades, and high class boyfriend, but she's really just a snob."

"Really? I mean I have all the normal classes with her that we have with the snakeys, and I don't pay attention to 'er much, but in art she seems real nice." said Aeryn who looked a little confused

"The Selwyns are a family who play both sides, and then hide behind the one whos got the best chance when it comes to a fight, there just cowards." Lily muttered disgustedly.

"I guess she's not very nice to you or Sev-I huh?"

Lily nodded; Severus had been put down many times by that snob.

"So who's she dating?" asked Aeryn, when hanging out with the marauders you didn't hear much romance gossip.

"Derrick Umbridge, a big Slytheirn jerk, I'm sure you've heard of him."

"Bleck! Him? Yeah we've pranked him before, he doesn't seem like a good choice, we visited his room once, it was sick, he's a total perv."

"You went into a Slytheirn's room?" gasped Lily, " a GUY slytheirn?"

"Honestly, you underestimate our skills." said Aeryn as she shook her head in a mock-shame way.

Lily sighed and stood up, "Well I enjoyed updating you on gossip, but I should go. Where do I leave the food for froggy?" she said as she motioned toward the left over food.

"By the lake, anywhere will do, and oh leave that uneaten toast for Mr. Stair-Tripper, here." said Aeryn, making the supposedly asleep Remus twitch.

"Ok, bye!" said Lily as she left with some of the food.

Aeryn lay on her bed and closed her eyes, hoping Remus would wake up. But after a few minutes he remained 'asleep' so she had to use drastic measures.

"REMIE-POO WAKEY, WAKEY. Toast is here!!" she yelled as she got into a better sitting position.

"Gah!" yelped Remus as he jumped into a sitting position. "What was that for?"

"Toast is here!" Aeryn said in a sing-song voice as she passed him the plate, "you'll have to thank Lily for this later."

"I kn- I mean yeah I will thanks for waking me." said Remus as he took the plate and begun munching on the toast.

After Remus was finished he put the plat down and asked "So what should we do now?"

Aeryn pretended to cackle evilly, "I have a plan for that." She said as she reached down into a bag under her table, and pulled out a medium sized velvet box.

Remus watched carefully as she opened the box, unsure of what it was.

"tah dah!" said Aeryn as she showed Remus four miniature dragon figurines that were twitching slightly.

"Ahh ha! Minature Enchanted Dragon Figurines, normally used for battling against each other, or used for the fun of having a small representation of a life sized dragon."

Aeryn nodded slyly, and put the box on the tale between them, "Lets se if you can match the power of Vladimir Bob Ocyrus the Destroyer!!" she yelled dramatically as she pulled out a small albino, almost snakelike Peruvian Vipertooth that soon began moving when it left the box.

While Remus muffled his laughter in the pillow the little dragon flew into Aeryns hand and let out a snort of disgust.

"I'm sorry, but Vladimir Bob Ocyrus the Destroyer?" said Reums as he recovered from laughing so hard.

"Well.. I just named him that when I was like seven and he won't go by anything else now!" defended Aeryn

"Right…."

"Just go pick your little monster now!!" muttered Aeryn

Remus looked at his choices, there was a Common Welsh Green (green with brown eyes), Ukrainian Ironbelly (black with gray belly and silver eyes), and a Chinese Fireball (red and orange with yellow eyes). At first he reached toward the Chinese, but then he decided on the Ironbelly, which started squiggling as he took it out.

"So what will you name it?" asked Aeryn as Remus's dragon started flying around his head.

"Name it?"

"Yeah you can keep it my dad collected them when he was a kid and when ever someone he knew got tired of theirs or something they would give them to him, so he has tons of the same ones."

"Oh well thanks." said Remus as he started to think of a name from some of his books.

"Smaug." He said finally

"Smog?" Aeryn questioned

"No S-m-au-g" he replied

"And you made fun of MY dragons name." muttered Aeryn.

Remus was about to defend the name, but then he decided against it, "Ok Smaug vs. Vladimir Bob Ocyrus the Destroyer. The battle starts… NOW!"

--

After about and hour of dragon battling and loud cheering, which got them yelled at by Madame Pomfry until Remus smartly pointed out they were only using their voices and arms to cheer, Smaug the Ukrainian Ironbelly won.

As Remus conjured up a bag and charmed it to make the mini dragon fall asleep when within the bag Aeryn muttered about how he should have chosen the Chinese Fireball, and how she would have "surely won" against it.

"Oh Aeryn calm down, it was only a game."

"Whatever. Anyways, I forgot to mention Professor Moody assigned us a sketch on 'muggle fears'." said Aeryn, who didn't bother to mention Iris because of Lily's rant making her cautious.

Remus nodded his head; something else had come to mind.

"Speaking of classes, How come you don't take any extra classes, I mean you do take art but that isn't required in any job category. Unless you want to become and artist? Or I guess Aurors don't need any extra classes. Oh and—"

"Remus" interrupted Aeryn her sad ton making the atmosphere turn darker, "I hate to be the one to break your spirit but I'm not going to have a job, not going to have a future. Neither will you. We're werewolves, who would let us take a job when not only are we feared, shamed and its illegal, but we would have to miss about a half a week each month. Hogwarts is a blessing for both of us; you may not realize it because you've spent most of your werewolf life here. My future is just going to be sitting around waiting for the moon and watching stupid muggle movies in my parent's basement. We're just two wolves and a moon nothing more" she finished darkly.

Remus was silent for a moment, making Aeryn fear she had crushed his spirit, until he finally spoke.

"Out of all of our kind I thought you would agree. I'm ashamed of you Aeryn, don't you have any hope!?" said Remus angrily, as his voice began to raise in volume.

"Hope? Why should we have hope, our condition has been present for years, and the attitude toward us has never changed, why hope?" muttered Aeryn.

Remus clenched the fist of the hand Aeryn hadn't broken, "So that doesn't mean there won't be change! Voldemort is here now but, he wasn't always! He won't always! Right now our ministry is being run by some insane jerk, but it won't always, there is change in the world Aeryn, change for us, and change for everyone!!" Remus said his voice filled with angry passion.

Panting slightly he continued, "Every year groups of students graduate from schools across the world, maybe one of them will find our cure, maybe one will fight for our rights, maybe even more then one! You just need to believe!! It WILL happen one day, and when it does the world WILL welcome us, and I'll settle down with a happy little family and I'll become a teacher and educate future generations so MORE change can happen! But Aeryn you're right on one small thing. We are just two wolves and that damned moon, but that just makes us stronger then anyone else, and gives us more reason to have faith" he finished.

He waited a while for Aeryn to respond, and when she didn't he sighed and grabbed his sketch book from a bag near his bed and started thinking of a 'muggle fear'.

And we end that long chapter

* * *

(A/n- my rambles)

I'm back, I know you're all horribly disappointed I didn't have my rambles last time, but I was too concentrated on getting it on.

Now this chapter wasn't terribly exciting but it needed to be here so I created sum fun with a little battle of dragons. Now this chapter may not seem terrible important to you mr. or mizz reader but I have the basic outline of everything in my head, and some of the rants in this chap do foreshadow.

Opinion on Remus's speech: . firstly I must say I never intended for them too quote the tilte, I added that in during editing cause it was like POW PERFECT CHANCE MISS WOLF. Now other part, i believe in the book Remus never finds a wolfy friend to rant about his hopes so eventually they fade, even though the wolfsbane potion gets invented, when lily and james die he changes more to Aeryn's point of view. Bur don't worry my story goes to a more or less—oh wait can't give it away :)

WOLF OUT


	10. Caught by a Stag and a Doe

Days rolled on, as the weather grew stormy, reflecting the mood of the young werewolves at Hogwarts. Though they hadn't really been arguing they were much to stubborn to talk out there differences on the werewolf controversy. Even when James, Sirius and Peter came in afterwards the two wouldn't talk, especially when Sirius mentioned that their DADA's teacher, Professor Youngblood was having an affair with a seventh year Hufflepuff girl. In fact, that piece of information worsened the situation because Remus and Aeryn got into a miniature fight about it.

"_That's disgusting! Why don't you tell the headmaster, that bastard is totally taking advantage of her!" said Aeryn who was outraged at this discovery._

"_How could you say that, are you blunt to peoples feelings? Its non of our business, Aeryn! Age doesn't matter its how they feel that counts!" growled Remus._

_Aeryn gave him the evil eye then turned away and began to finish her sketch book assignment, it was a drawing of a headless horseman, who wore a wickedly carved jack-a-lantern in place of his missing head. He rode on an evil, shadowy steed chasing a poor man, who now, with some erasing and re-drawing, resembled Lupin._

But beside the fact that the weather was bad, and Remus and Aeryn were glaring daggers at each other, things were good as students dreamed about the Halloween feast that would take place the next evening.

"Aeryn wake up we should go for a jog!" said the voice of a redheaded roommate.

"One more hour mummy" muttered the victim, Aeryn, though she knew it was not in fact her dear mother.

After several minutes Lily finally got Aeryn out of bed and geared up to go for a jog.

"Why are we doing this? It's five in the morning and the weathers crap!" muttered Aeryn as they walked through the portrait hole.

"Because Aeryn, I need to stay in shape if I want to eat a bunch of fabulous ice cream during the Halloween feast!"

"There always is ice cream after dinner."

"You shall regret your words when you eat tomorrow's ice cream, missy."

Instead of replying, Aeryn grumbled as they began jogging out in the pouring rain, only a well cast charm between them and getting soaked.

The rest of the day wasn't exciting either, teachers just piled up the work, and Aeryn continued shooting 'if looks could kill' glares at poor confused Professor Youngblood.

"Jeez Aeryn give him a break, he's not bad and not even that old!" muttered Sirius as the marauders walked out of Defense against Dark Arts.

Aeryn muttered something about 'using young girls' and 'vile rubbish head' then glared daggers at Remus. But he didn't glare back, instead he just had that in-deep-thought look he'd had on his face for the last couple days.

Grumbling at his lack of reaction, Aeryn waved a quick goodbye to Sirius, James, and Peter then backed up to where Lily was walking behind them.

"Whoopy doo, potions next." muttered Aeryn sarcastically.

Lily patted Aeryn on the back "Its okay it's Friday, tomorrow is a beautiful weekend." she said, understanding her friend was not very pleased, maybe that jog hadn't been a great idea.

As the redheads walked in they realized that the class had been waiting for them, but luckly this wasn't a problem since Lily was a member of the 'slug club'. Ignoring the stares for being late the girls quickly rushed over to a table in between the marauders and Iris and her bulky boyfriend.

After the walrus-look-a-like explained there potion, Draught of Tranquility, which made the drinker calm down into an almost scary, bubbly positive attitude, Professor Slughorn waddled over to Lily and Aeryn's table.

As he reached the table he took a quick whiff of their potions, "Ahh Lily, my dear, you're making excellent progress as always! And Aeryn, not bad, not bad, maybe lessen the salamander sweat next time." Then he paused looked around, straightened his tie and continued, facing Aeryn this time, "On a different note, I was wondering if you would like to join Lily and the rest of us at the 'slug club' for dinner next week, if you'd like, of course, Miss O'Connell."

Aeryn took awhile to answer because she was so surprised, she knew the Professor was only interested and kids with bright futures, and she sure as hell didn't have one.

"Sure." said Aeryn with a shrug as she figured it was probably a harmless scam made by the large man to keep Lily with the club.

"Excellent, excellent! I'll be looking forward to it, and will conform the date with you lovely ladies soon! Oh and Aeryn, don't put that in, the directions call for Kelpie hoof essence, not powdered Keff-off bark." said the walrus-like man cheerfully as he waddled off on his large feet or 'flippers' as Peter called them.

Lily nodded then gave Aeryn some of her hoof essence to Aeryn, who looked as if she could use a sip of the potion once it was finished.

After potions, the rest stormy day went without a flaw, and finally ended.

Lily laid down on her bed and looked over at Aeryn who was sitting on her bed massaging her head and muttering something about 'stupid Lupin' and 'kelpie powder'

Aeryn's muttering reminded Lily of how Aeryn had told Lily she was arguing with Remus about Youngblood's affair (common knowledge to the Slytheirns and Gryffindor who had their way of finding this stuff out and passing it on), but Lily had a feeling there was something else. They had been good friends, and it was something pretty stupid to fight over, though Aeryn did have tendencies to be stubborn in those kinds of situations.

"Hey Aeryn. I doubt your stubborn head want to hear this, but you and Remus should make up over whatever you arguing about, I mean its Halloween tomorrow for crying out loud, and I don't want your fiery temper melting my ice cream!" said Lily as she rolled over and when to go to sleep. She hoped mentioning food in a humorous way would help it get through her silly friend's thick head.

"I'll try." Said Aeryn sleepily, as she turned off the lights and went to bed.

The time leading up to the feast wasn't very exciting, the next day. This probably had to do with the fact that it was hailing hell outside, and that Lily was so hyper thinking about the ice cream she made Aeryn join her in 'battling' their essays and other homework, for so long Aeryn had actually done all of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday's homework, with only one snack break.

"See Aeryn, now we are worthy of the ice cream!" Lily practically squealed.

"Well it better be worth missing dungbombing the Ravenclaw tower and missing lunch!" said Aeryn who felt brain dead from work overload.

"As much as you like kicking Ravenclaw tail-feather it wasn't a very good run." Said Remus from a desk somewhere behind them, where he had been working just like them. Though unlike Aeryn, Lily hadn't stopped Remus from hearing the marauder's tale.

"Shut up Lupin nobody asked you." said Aeryn a little too harshly, stirring the attention of a few other students.

Lily rolled her eyes, "K'mon Aeryn lets put our stuff away." said Lily as she shepherded her grumpy friend to the dorm, giving Remus an apologetic look.

He just shrugged knowingly then got that in-deep-thought look again.

After putting away their homework, Aeryn put her hair up in a pony tail and they left for the dinning hall.

"Ice cream ice cream, we all scream for ice cream." sang Lily under her breath, as Aeryn followed her, the slightest bit of annoyed amusement on the taller girl's face. As they reached to hall, they came just in time to see the great dinner appear. Quickly Aeryn sat down across from the marauders (and as far away from Remus as possible), who had already started devouring their food. Grudgingly, Lily sat next to her, feeling that if stubborn Aeryn could stand being near Remus she could do the same with James(for that single meal at least).

Just as Aeryn started digging in, the food clearing away any grumpyness from hunger, Lily stopped her for a second.

"Save your appetite or else you'll be too full for dessert!" Lily warned as she ate the small amount of food on her plate.

It turned out Lily was right; when the dessert finally came Aeryn was really glad she had taken some heed to the warning. There were hundreds of different types of desserts, from caked that had enchanted frosting bats that tried to fly off, to the wide varieties of Honeyduke's candy. But the ice cream, the stuff Lily had been dreaming about all day, it was the best. Its taste was hard to describe, It just gave you this nice tingly felling that made it impossible to frown. Due to that fact, everyone was grinning like maniacs from the frozen treat, whether they had a small scoop like Remus, or filled their plate like Lily, even the Slytheirns looked out of place with slightly goofy smiles.

"Now I see why we had to do those jogs" laughed Aeryn as she scooped up another spoonful.

"Can say 'I told you so'?"

"T bad, yah just did!" said Aeryn with a smirk.

From across the table and far to the right, Remus finished his meal and pushed away the plate so it could be cleared. Then he took some chocolate from the table then put in his pocket.

"I'm going back to thee dorm, see you guys tomorrow, and watch out for Halloween haunters." said Remus with the teensiest bit of a smirk.

He left as everyone but Aeryn, who just nodded, wished him goodnight. Then a few minutes later everyone in the hall slowly filtered out, including Lily and Aeryn.

As they got back to the room Lily decided to take a shower leaving Aeryn to wait in there room until it was her turn. Bored Aeryn sat on her bed and just listened to the steady rhythm of the pounding rain. Then suddenly the window burst open then closed again in a matter of seconds. Alarmed, Aeryn jumped up and looked around, was that breathing she heard?

Then next to lily's bed, on the floor she could of sworn she saw… shoes?

Then it hit her, James's invisibility cloak. Quickly a plan to catch him formed in her mind. Pretending like nothing had happened Aeryn yawned then pretended she was about to take her shirt (which wouldn't have been bad since she had a tank top on under). Then she heard it, the surprised gasp of breath from next to her bed, and she pounced on the intruder.

"Gotcha Jame—wait, huh?" said Aeryn as she took the cloak off of the boy she was pinning down on her bed.

"Err, hullo Aeryn." mumbled Remus who was blushing and looking very uncomfortable from being pinned down by Aeryn, all at the same time.

"What are you doing here!" said Aeryn loudly as she rolled off of him so she was instead sitting next to Remus.

"I was trying to…err apologize, or talk about our argu—I mean discussion, I don't like fighting with you much, because not only is it dangerous for my health, but I think I was being a little thick headed." He said with a sigh, as he folded up the cloak.

"So what gave the urge for you to sneak into my dorm to do this?" said Aeryn suspiciously, in order to hide her surprise.

"Well it was Halloween and stuff so—" stared Remus but he never got to finish when hse heard a voice from the bathroom.

"Aeryn AERYN? Why is there another… MALE voice in there? Who is tha!!. JAMES? JAMES GET OUT YOU BAS—" yelled Lily from the bathroom.

"Ohh god, we better go!" panicked Aeryn

"this way!" yelled Remus over the noise of the rain outside the window he had just opened,

"What?" stuttered Aeryn, who didn't feel desperate enough to jump out a window.

Remus sighed and dragged her to the window, "How do think I got here, Fox?" He said, using a nickname the marauders had only used for her once in the hospital wing.

Quickly she climbed up on the window ledge outside with Remus right behind her. They would have been soaked but the ledge from the room above kept them dry.

"Hop on!" said Remus as he got onto the broomstick sitting on the ledge.

"What about the rain." said Aeryn, who unlike Remus, with his robes, only had a her uniform shirt and pants on.

From inside they heard yelling, "Here maybe the cloak will work!" suggested Remus as he threw over James's cloak.

As they flew off Aeryn gripped onto Remus tightly, she might have been a great flyer, but even the best wouldn't do well in this weather. Speaking of weather, for the first few seconds the cloak seemed to be keeping the water out, but then once it soaked through the magical cloth, they were reminded it was only a invisibility cloak, not a poncho.

Well as least i have an under shirt, thought Aeryn, who's white shirt was see through.

Remus was a great fly, the only problem was, he wasn't sure were to go, it wasn't like there would be any windows open.

"GO TO THE COURTYARD!" yelled Aeryn over the rain

"WHAT?" he replied not hearing.

Aeryn moved her mouth closer to his ear then yelled again, "THE COURTYARD!!"

Remus flinched, acknowledging he heard, and the fact that her voice was really loud.

Soon the rain batter pair where in a gentle dive headed toward the nearest courtyard.

As soon as they got inside again Remus took out his wand and dried them both off, then he left the broom by the door, because it was 'borrowed' from the school.

"Thanks for the escape." said Aeryn

"Well considering my actions, I guess I was just in a mischievous mood." He said, smiling a wonderful smile that made Aeryn's heart pound a little faster.

"Speaking of mischief, while we still have the cloak, wanna go scare any wandering people, its not to late so there still might be some stragglers." offered Aeryn

"Sounds good." said Remus as his eyes changed from a calm watery gray to a shining silver.

Aeryn panted hard as Remus pulled her into a tight passageway, covered by a tapestry with a romantic dinner scene, where they stood face to face with little room between them selves. They had been running from a group of Ravenclaws, the latest of their victims, who unlike the others had decided to fight back. This ruined their plan and they were forced to take off the cloak and run for it, depending on Remus's knowledge of the passageways.

"That was close." panted a slightly distracted Remus as he admired the crackle of energy in Aeryn's blue eye, the one not covered by her messy bangs, he had never seen her face so close before.

Aeryn nodded, but she too was distracted, this time by the wonderful way his golden hair stuck up, and making her fight the urge to run her hand through it, and mess it up even more.

Subconsciously his head told him not to, but before the message could go to his hand, Remus had already reached out to brush her staying bangs away from one of her eyes.

Aeryn's breath hitched as his hand brushed her face, and without really having control of herself she reached for his hair, to feel it in her fingers. In reply he cupped her face in his hand and leaned forward for the kiss…

"What do we have here?" interrupted a voice belonging to James, causing the couple to freeze, there lips only a centimeter apart.

Stunned Remus pulled back his face little but didn't change position, "Talking…" he stuttered lamely.

Then from the other side of the passage way which was only a few feet away a new voice came.

"Oh Aeryn, I told you to make up with him, not make out." said Lily who was smiling and holding a curtain aside.

As the situation finally smacked the smitten couple in the face, they backed up blushing, only to crash into the walls.

"Oh hello Lily dear, shall we join them?" offered James, turning Lily's smile down into more of a frown.

"In your dreams, James. K'mon Aeryn lets go." said Lily

Silver eyes locked with blue for a second, before Aeryn muttered goodbye, then left towards Lily.

"How did you know we were there." was the first thing that came from Aeryn's almost kissed lips.

Lily pointed to the curtain, which turned out to be a tapestry, the same one as on the other side. "Lover's Passage, as a prefect I was told were it was, and well I decided to check it when you were in none of the obvious places, now lets get back to the room and you can tell me about you and Remus."

Aeryn blushed, and nodded. Even though Lily was shorter by a head, it was impossible to say no, and her tone made Aeryn feel like a naughty little kid who had misbehaved.

Back on the other side of Lover's Passage, Remus was blushing madly. "How'd yuh find us." was all he managed to mumble.

James pulled out a piece of paper, it was a (older for us) version of the marauders map, thought it wasn't very detailed and the only names it showed were the professors, filch and his cat, the marauders and Lily. The people on the map, had registered on the map because through some clever way the marauders had gotten them to touch it. This map wasn't perfect, but it would do.

"Dangit!" muttered Remus as soon as he laid eyes on the map he had helped create.

"I say you and Miss Foxie's names on the map off-ly close together, and running around, so I decided to check it out."

"Don't call her that." Remus managed to mutter in defense.

"Fine only you can call her 'foxy', Mr. Moony." said James with a smirk as they returned to their dorms.

"James, I don't feel for her like _that_."

Aeryn looked away from Lily in embarrassment as she finished telling all her experiences with Remus, excluding anything related to their 'furry little problem'.

Lily smile was huge, "Aww how cute, Aeryn's got a boyfriend."

"No he's just a friend." muttered Aeryn for the billionth time.

"A friend you happened to spend the night in a closet with?"

"Shut up! I shouldn't have told you that, he's nothing to me in the romance department."

* * *

my rambles)

Heheheheehe whooooooooooooo those too are so in denial, right? oh and just a side note, before my update other chapters said nov. it should be october now


	11. A Laggey Invasion

Remus sat down on his bed and looked out the window. Last month had been okay. It was nearing the end of November now, but things seemed like they hadn't changed, or at least for him. After that almost dreamy kiss with Aeryn, they had just pushed it out of the way like it had never happened.

The transformation after that had been fine, just like the one last Monday. They had enjoyed hanging out in the hospital wing, like always, but that wasn't enough for him, he could help but want to be more then a friend. But did she want it? Aeryn was a bold girl, if she did feel the same way wouldn't she have done something?

"I hate this! Why can't I just ask her out myself!" he yelled at nobody.

Because you're a loser, said the evil little voice in his head.

Remus took his pillow and threw it at the wall in anger, stupid life, he thought, stupid feelings.

Then he walked over and got the pillow and but it back. After everything was in order he picked up a book from the stack under his bed and started reading it.

Meanwhile, Sirius was in the library. During any normal circumstances, he would never be in such a place, but James had asked him to do some research on certain forest, to find a place where they could do the animagus ceremony without being discovered. As he took a book out, the area behind the case became visible. And through the hole, on the other side sat a girl studying. As she looked upward slightly and rubbed her head, he was able to identify her as Iris Selwyn. He recognized her from some of his classes, but mostly from the boring parties he had been dragged along to (by his parents).

They where pureblood only parties of course, where filthy rich snot bags and their courtiers showed off some of their wealth (whether it was a new dress or an heir to so much amount of their money). But Iris had always been a little different, not in a good or bad way. After the pleasantries, he noticed that instead of further mingling with the rich filth, she would go to a quiet corner and read a book, a muggle book. Now he knew the Selwyn's were kiss ups to the muggleborn community, but her behavior was a little suspicious. Just then he saw her look up, but this time he could have sworn it was at him. Shaking his head he put back the book then circled around.

Detective Sirius, on the case, he narrated in his head. He circled around to the other side of the bookcase, throwing a quick look over his shoulder. Now that he could see her better, there was something different about her, she was… tired looking, like she hadn't slept in days.

Just then someone walked in, Sirius turned his head slightly to see. It was Derrick Umbridge, another pureblood and her current boyfriend. He wasn't terribly bad looking, pretty muscular, maybe a little too square from some girls. His hair was blonde and cropped short, and he was growing a slight mustache, not bad for a boy his age, but only one word ran through Sirius's head.

An ogre, Sirius thought, a bloody ogre, that's what he looks like, nobody should look at a girl with the hungry expression he—no _Ogre_, that's his new name, does.

"Iris, lets go." demanded the deep voice of Ogre/Umbridge.

"Yes, Derrick, give me one second." said Iris, who flinched ever so slightly, as she walked by him to put away her books.

For a second as she walked away, he could have sworn she gave him a quick pleading look. But as she strolled behind Ogre, trying to be casual, it was hard to be sure.

Well Detective Sirius, it seems you have a new case, did the—he paused trying to come up with a code name for Iris,--did the _Snake Maiden_, really give you a desperate look, or was she only admiring your dashing looks, he thought to himself again. Hey, he enjoyed narrating for himself, because after all, wasn't life just a big, dangerous game?

As Sirius pretended to be a detective and Remus threw pillows, Aeryn was up in the air on her broom. Recently she had been put on the reserve team for Quidditch, by James who was Captain ever since George O'Smealy, a seventh year, had to quit because of stress from NEWT studying. It was understandable why she couldn't join the team, seeing as she got injured too much and games couldn't be arranged just to fit her schedule. But she liked the freedom it gave her, and wasn't a problem, not for now. However, right now she had two issues invading her life: Remus and that Merlin forsaken Sluggy Club.

Aeryn flew down and grabbed a quaffle from the ground then practiced throwing it and catching it to get her frustration out.

Firstly there was that stupid slug thing to worry about. They would be having a fancy dinner crappy thing in about two hours on this fine Sunday, and Aeryn really wasn't in the mood for kissing up to the fat arse walrus. The dinner could lead to nothing but trouble, especially that idiot Larry Hector. He kept getting way to friendly at the last couple ones.

"I care about Remus not that git!" yelled Aeryn as she threw the quaffle, hard, at the goals only to have it bounce off the top of the middle one.

Sighing with frustration Aeryn dove down seeker style to catch the quaffle before it hit the ground. Then she landed and walked back to her dorm to take a shower and get ready, leaving the problem of Remus on the same note it had been for the whole month, **Why can't I get the guts and ask him out for Merlin's sake!**

The next morning, Monday, Lily got up from the table to go to Ancient Runes and said goodbye to Aeryn and Remus. Poor Aeryn had seemed really on edge last night, and she still was even now, but this was something for Aeryn to figure out and she had issues of her own. Like the messy black haired, hazel eyed problem that was trying to say good bye to her now. Lily just wished James would just stop, because she didn't enjoy being cruel to someone even as toe-raggy as him. Little did she or anyone else know, their problems (or their super spy cases or whatever else they referred to them as) would only be getting worse.

"Okay Aeryn, lets head to art." said Remus trying to sound as happy as possible.

"Okay dokay." replied Aeryn, trying to be causal.

As they walked down the hallway to the red classroom, Aeryn couldn't help feeling tingly.

We're alone, she thought, all alone. Now would be the perfect time to make a move.

"Hey Remus?"

"Yes Aeryn?" he replied. The way he said it making her freeze up inside, and the tiniest bit of bravery she had melt, so she was just left frozen staring at him and looking quite stupid.

"Aeryn?" he questioned his face scrunching up in confusion.

"I.. would you… do you know if we had any homework?" stuttered Aeryn.

Remus relaxed, on the outside.

"Of course not silly, we get it every other week, I though you'd know that by now."

"Heh heh, silly me." muttered Aeryn, who was furious at herself, where was that darned bravery when you needed it?

Soon they were in front of a bright red door, and without any hesitation, Remus opened it and they entered their Art class.

As Aeryn sat down, she tried to distract herself by thinking about the girl Lily disliked, Iris.

At first she was only interested in why the girl hadn't been at that barmy slug party last night, but then at closer inspection she realized almost everything but the green and sliver lined uniform was different..

There were shadows under her eyes, and Iris's hair had grown about two thirds of a foot longer and was a complete mess. Around her neck she wore a silver and green striped scarf that was tightly wound, which wasn't very unusual since the weather was cold, but most people would at least take it off inside. Also Aeryn could tell there was some makeup cover-up charms on her face, probably for some zits or something.

I guess every super sucessful pureblooded Slytherin has their days when the price of stuff catches up to them, thought Aeryn.

It was true. Just about everyone knew that Iris's parents had bribed the ministry to start her at hogwarts when she was only ten, and even now she was taking a few NEWT classes in extra subjects.

But before Aeryn's thoughts could wander further, the professor popped into the room through his magical door and the lessons began.

Before long, the first half of the days class's ended, and everybody, accept Lily who 'needed to go to the library', sat down to eat lunch.

"Anything happen in Art?" asked James who waggled his eyebrows throwing the hint that instead of 'in art' he meant 'with Remus'.

Aeryn gave him a killing stare, "Not really, though our snaky classmate, Selwyn, looked horrible. I guess purebloods have trouble keeping up the image twenty four seven eh Sirius?... Sirius?" questioned Aeryn when Sirius only responded by scanning the Slytherin table. But for some reason the Snake Maiden wasn't in sight and only the Ogre was there, munching on some fancy food.

"Hey Sirius! SIRIUS!" called James, who was staring at him weirdly like the rest of them, even ever quiet Remus.

"Sorry." apologized Sirius as he brushed his hair with is hand, "I just wanted to check for myself, but it seems like snakes don't like showing themselves off when they're shedding their skin."

Everyone grinned at his normal, Sirius-y, response, then went back to eating their various meals. After that they had DADA arts with Professor Youngblood, who Aeryn wasn't terribly fond of.

"Ok kids, I need to go do some things, so I want you guys to practice _stupefy, protego, _and the revival spell for stupefy: _ennervate._" said the young Professor as he walked out the door a little too happily.

"Why do we have to have the class that his little girlfriend's got free period during?" complained Peter as the class pushed the desks to the sides of the room.

"I don't know, but this'll be fun!" shouted James as he got into the fray of shouts "Stupefy, Protego!"

"This is hopeless." muttered Lily. Then she shouted "STUPEFY" at James.

"Better." she said, as she pulled out a book and sat behind a shield charm she had just casted.

"What about you Aeryn, gonna join in?" asked Remus who was sitting on a desk reading a Muggle book called _The Hobbit_, for the second time this month.

"Nah." said Aeryn, as she leaned against Lily's desk, watching Peter get stunned by a Hufflepuff, "We'd have an unfair advantage, ya' know 'cause we are resistant to most spells and major jinxes."

"True but that never stopped my face from turning blue some about of months ago." chuckled Remus.

"I said MAJOR jinxes," chuckled Aeryn.

It was nice when they could just chat like normal friends.

"Incoming!!!" shouted Sirius who ducked, causing the red jet of light to come over to where Remus, Aeryn and Lily(who had a nice little shield) where peacefully sitting.

"Wankers!" muttered Remus as he jumped in front of the light blocking it from hitting Aeryn who it was heading towards.

It didn't stun him, but to cover up his invulnerability to the spell, he pretended to fall.

Lily looked down at Remus who laid sprawled across the floor, "Aww he saved you, you better revive him and give him a kiss or something." She chuckled only loud enough for Aeryn to hear..

Aeryn stared daggers at her then bent down to Remus, "Thanks," she whispered, then cast "Ennervate" even though it was unneeded.

Aeryn stood up and gave Remus a hand to help him up too.

"Maybe we should have a handy shield like Lily." he muttered, rubbing his head.

"Protego!" yelled Aeryn, and they got there own little half bubble.

"Good, good, back to reading." said Remus quickly before they could talk anymore.

Aeryn looked at him reading curiously, was that a bit of blush reddening his cheeks?

Then she looked around and noticed they were the only people behind a bubble together and had a few people staring. Cursing silently in embarrassment, Aeryn sat down on the ground next to Remus's desk and pulled out a magical fiction book about an female Quidditch player, strengthened the shield, then started reading were she'd left off.

After that the rest of the day was generally normal, that was, until dinner.

Aeryn, and Lily, and the marauders were sitting at there table in the normal arrangement. Aeryn with Lily to her right, and across from Aeryn, Remus (the only marauder Lily could have a nice conversation with) and to his right, (Aeryn's left) sat Peter then Sirius, and farthest from Lily, James. Currently, everyone who wasn't coming in was staring at the head table because the food wasn't on their plates, and that meant there was probably going to be some announcements.

Sure enough as soon as most of the students were seated, Dumbledore stood up.

"Now I'm sure you all are hungry, but before we get carried away by our food, I would like to announce that retired Holyhead Harpies Captian, Frances Hooch, will be refereeing next Saturday's game, Gryffindor vs. Hufflepuff, and all the other games after winter break which will start the following Monday. Now can we have a cheer for Madame Hooch!"

The whole hall clapped without complaint, she might have been a little scary with her eagle like eyes, but she was well respected Quidditch-wise.

"Now for a second announcement, winter break is approaching and I'm sure you are all making decisions on whether you will stay or not, but in order to give you a good perspective on what you may or may not miss, I am proud to announce that due to financing by an ex-student, Professor Slughorn's holiday party on Christmas eve will be turned into a full on Winter Ball, and all students third year and up will be invited." Every one cheered accept for students under the age limit who booed.

"Now, now," started Dumbledore, quieting the riot, "Students under the age limit can be invited by an older student, but I don't believe they will find much entertainment in a formal event."

The cheering started again, and this time there were limited boos.

"Are you staying?" asked Lily.

"Not for the stupid party, my parents just want me to spend Christmas with my friends while they go on some steamy retreat in France."

"Oh yeah, oh yeah its on my birthday!" shouted Sirius, among the other loud chatter of excitement.

"Really?" asked Aeryn in surprise.

"Yeah I'm turning SIXTEEN on CHRISTMAS, EXTRA presents for MEEE!" the ridiculously good looking boy sang, making some giggly girls… well, giggle.

Remus chuckled, "I guess it's that time of year again, when we must empty our pockets. Luckily they'll be a Hogsmeade trip on Friday since the past month's weather was preventing other trips."

"Cheers to that," said James in a sing song voice as the food appeared and butterbeer and pumpkin juice filled their cups.

"Cheers!" agreed Remus, Peter, and Aeryn.

"To my birthday!" yelled Sirius as they clanged cups.

Lily just watched with an amused look on her face, and started sipping some tea. I can't wait for the drama of everyone asking each other out, thought Lily, I'd put my money on Aeryn asking poor Remus.

The following three days were crazy. The lists for staying at Hogwarts were just about full and everyone seemed to be asking each other out so as not to be the only ones dateless. Wednesday was Lily's day when an attractive sixth year Ravenclaw named Edger Embercombie, who had been catching Lily's eye for the last few weeks, finally asked her out to Hogsmeade and the Ball, and she accepted.

It was Tuesday night, first day of December and finally Aeryn and Lily were settling down for some needed rest.

Lily sighed happily from her bed, thinking about Edger, and how much fun they would have at Hogsmeade, especially since they would have the day off, so it would be a full day trip. Though she was only meeting him for a really late lunch, at 3:00, they would spend the rest of their time together, to find out more about each other.

"Thinking about Eddy are you?" said Aeryn from her bed with a hint of jealousness.

"Yeah," admitted Lily, "I'm looking forward to learning more about him."

"Well," sighed Aeryn, "He may be Ravenclaw, but I guess as long as he's good to you he'll be safe."

"That's great to hear," chuckled Lily , "but Aeryn you never told me why you hate Ravenclaw so much! Not that it's your fault, but we've never had a real girl to girl talk."

"Well, when my mum was at Hogwarts she was in Hufflepuff and during her seventh year she entered the Triwizard Tournament against a very popular Ravenclaw. She ended up being the champion for Hogwarts, so Ravenclaw gave her hell. A bunch of student got expelled for what they almost did to her. Luckily my dad, who was a ninth year at Sir Charge's Academy of Spellcraft, one of the participating schools, saved the day."

"Aww that's so romantic." said Lily dreamily.

"Yeah, but anyway what was that crap about girl to girl talk again? I'm pretty sure that's NOT what we're having." questioned Aeryn

"Not until, NOW" shouted Lily as she jumped out of bed and sad down on Aeryn's bed next to her.

"Merlin's beard," muttered Aeryn.

"Okay dokay time for you to talk about Remus!"

"Fine, fine, I like him."

"Soooo, are you going to ask him out to the ball?" Lily almost squealed

"Firstly the ball isn't until Christmas, everyone is really rushing things!"

"But…!"

"But," grumbled Aeryn, "I was hoping he would put on his Gryffindor pants and ask me, but knowing him he probably either thinks its to early or is to embarrassed, which is fine by me. So I'm planning to ask him around lunch, since the Marauders and I will be heading out later."

"Good, good, I'm glad you'll have something to do while I'm with Edger." said Lily as she patted Aeryn on the head, and went to bed. Making sure to turn off the lights on her way there.

"G'night, Lily."

"Have sweet Remus filled dreams Aeryn." Lily smirked in the dark.

"I'm so going to kill you in my dreams." muttered Aeryn in response.

It was Friday morning, and Remus was leaning against a wall, deeply troubled.

Should I ask her… does she feel the same way, thought Remus.

No, of course she doesn't, she would have asked you by now, said the negative voice.

But, I thought, that night… in the passage she almost kissed me, he thought back.

And I'm sure if she did, she would be regretting it, snarled the voice.

"Remus?" said a timid voice from somewhere near him.

At first he thought it was Aeryn, but then he realized she wouldn't sound like that.

"Umm, hello." greeted Remus as the girl came into view, she was a fourth year, Mary McLaggen. She was about a head and a half shorter then him, with pale skin, bronze hair and amber eyes, and looked even smaller and tinier in the small amount of light the early morning allowed.

"You do know my name…?" she asked. Her amber eyes looked worried for a second.

"Yes, of course you're Mary McLaggen, Gryffindor fourth year."

"Wow you remember…" she said dreamily, as she played with some of her bronze hair with a petite.

"I was wondering, Remus… Would you go to the ball with me. I admire you very much. You're very smart, calm, and handsome, and I've had a crush on you for awhile."

Remus was completely blown away. He was frozen in place. She had... a crush, on HIM? She, _admired_, HIM? But what about Aeryn, he desperately thought.

Screw Aeryn, the voice told him, Mary thinks your handsome and smart, all you do with Aeryn is fight.

"Remus?" Mary asked, her eyes looking close to tears.

"Yes, I'll go with you." stuttered Remus, what else could he do, break some fourteen year old girl's heart?

Torn, he decided he would try and avoid Aeryn; he wouldn't be able to face her, even if she didn't like him.

"Oh him so excited, it's like a dream!" she squealed, frightening Remus.

Then she ran over and gave him a hug, then skipped away happily.

"Oh Merlin, Merlin, Merlin, what the bloody hell am I going to do?" Remus asked once she was gone. Then he sunk to the ground, and put his head in his hands. He had just said yes to a girl he barely knew. Quietly he took a piece of chocolate from his pocket. It was Honeyduke's brand but he had sent it to his grandmother, who had cast a charm on it that made it even better. He was about to open the delicious treat and take a bite, when he realized that he wouldn't be the one hurt from this messy situation he had got himself into. Because if Aeryn did like him, which the mysterious voice in his head didn't deny this time, she would need the chocolate a lot more.

As the male Marauders, Remus included walked to lunch Aeryn soon joined in.

"Hey guys!" she said happily.

James gave her a happy smile and pulled her to the group, "Howdy Foxtrot!"

"Foxtrot?!" exclaimed Sirius, "What kind of name is that?"

While James and Aeryn explained to Sirius and Peter it was a military code, Remus tried to think of a way to slip away.

"Hey guy I need to do per—" but before he could make his excuse an army of girls ambushed Sirius and James, knocking over Peter.

Quickly Aeryn took the chance and pulled Remus into a corridor.

"Remus," Aeryn started, making his nightmares and dreams come true all at the same time, "Will you go out with me to the ball and stuff?"

There was a pause, then Remus looked away in shame, "I'm sorry Aeryn, someone already asked me… I said yes."

He heard a gasp and her back away into a suit of armor, making it crash into the wall,

"Who?" Aeryn demanded simply tears welling in her eyes.

Remus couldn't look, he knew that she was probably going to kill him and Mary, but guilt overwhelmed him and he told her anyway. "Mary Mclaggen."

He heard the clang of the suit of armor as she ran away. Try his best to catch up to her, he jumped the pile of armor and grabbed the pocked of her jacket, "I'm sorry!" was all he could gasp out before she ran away.

The few tears that had leaked stopped as Aeryn ran, more confused then devastated. Then she headed to a statue of one eyed witch, tapped it and muttered the password. It opened up a passage way that she knew from James's and Sirius's lectures led to Honeydukes. But she wasn't looking for a snack; Aeryn just wanted a place to think in quiet and not be bothered.

After awhile Aeryn realized she was supposed to meet Lily next to Dervish & Bangs, and headed down the passageway until she hit a dead end. Then she opened up the trap door, climbed up. Once she was in the cellar she quietly climbed up the stairs, and tried to nonchalantly walk into the shop from the back room. It was a success, the shop was much to busy for anyone to care or notice. As she squeezed through the candy shop, she decided that it would be a waste not to buy something for Lily and for some of her other friends, so she went around and found something for almost all of them, but when it came to Remus, she paused.

After deciding she wouldn't get him anything, she when over to the section that had her favorite, Shoc-o-choc, '_Add some SHOCK to your Choc-o-late__'_. It was really supposed to be something you gave to your enemies as a trick, but Aeryn truly enjoyed them, and was surprised when no one else shared her enthusiasm. But when she reached the rack that sold them, she immediately, pushed through the crowd and hid behind a rack with liquorish wands, ('_NEW: Rocking Raspberry flavor!'). _The reason: Remus had been standing in front of the Shoc-o-choc, and was grabbing a pack.

"Maybe he was getting some for James and Sirius to use." muttered Aeryn to the shelf of Rocking Raspberry liquorish wands.

When the candy wands didn't respond Aeryn put her hood on (because that would totaly help disguise you when you're almost a head taller then half the kids), then snuck into line.

After paying for the Exploding bonbons (Sirius), Ice Mice (James), Sugar quills (Lily), Acid pops (Peter) and Cockroach Clusters (Parents, who had weird taste buds), Aeryn took the bag and marched into the chilly outside air.

As she exited the shop, she felt something in her pcket, reaching down she pulled out a Honeydukes candy, but she was pretty sure she hadn't bought this one. shrugging, she opened the wrapper and took a bite. it was like all the best things she'd ever eprince, and made her feel warm from inside out.

After devouring the fabulous and random chocolate, Aeryn took a second to watch a bunch of wizards put up holiday decorations, but she was soon interupted by an angry voice came from behind her.

"MERLIN'S PANTS AERYN, YOU HAD ME WORRIED SICK!!" yelled Lily as she crashed into her friend with a big hug, that was somewhat uncomfortable because of Lily's shopping bags and the people who stared.

"Err…" mumbled Aeryn, who was unsure of what to say.

"It's ok Aeryn, I know, the Royal Prats sent Peter to tell me in case you well… _disappeared, which you ended up doing, and worrying me to death!"_ said Lily sounding a little to much like a mom with the last group of words.

"Yeah sorry. Had to think." said Aeryn truthfully with a shrug.

"Ohh Aer-ie I'm so sorry!" said Lily as she hugged Aeryn again, this time with out the bags, "I'll just go tell Edger that my friend needs some comfort time, and we—"

"No" interrupted Aeryn as she slid from Lily's hug-o-death, "I'm fine, really, you go have an awesome time with your Eddy, and I'll just finish up shopping, and then head out."

"You sure you'll be fine, no more hiding or running?" asked Lily with a concerned voice.

"Yes, as long as you NEVER call me Aer-ie again I'll be fine."

"Ok," said Lily with a last hug as she picked up her bags and started to leave, " I'll show Lupin not to mess with my friends.." was the last thing Aeryn heard as Lily left toward Madame Puddfoot's, even though it was a bit early.

Aeryn chuckled lightly at her friend's loyalty then headed over to Zonko's joke shop. At Zonko's she got a small teddy bear that was currently gagged because it tried to bite you if you turned your back on it for James, a shirt that said 'kiss me' on the back, enchanted so only the opposite gender of the wearer could see (sorry gays) for Sirius, a mirror enchanted to make the refection look ugly for Sirius's birthday present, and a pair of Christmas socks that turned your feet green and made you hover at random times for Peter.

For Lily she went to Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop to get her education-loving friend a really amazing quill that changed feather type every time you looked at it, and also came already-inked, with ink that never dried or ran out.

Then she went to the Owl Post Office to order a book for Lily because despite Lily's request of 'just a new quill', Aeryn believed multiple candies and a magical quill was not enough. After sending the order to A Wizard's Book-a-torium of Muggle Books, because she knew Lily preferred muggle books to wizard (something Aeryn didn't get because she hadn't read a muggle book in her whole life, "The covers look so dull, they don't even move, at least muggle movies do!"), she headed back out into the cold to catch a carriage back to Hogwarts.

* * *

My Rambles.

Whewy that crazy chapter took a bit even thoug I started right after the last. Sorry folks but Remus and Aeryn have to have suuuuum issues or its no fun, oh and on that note I think I'll foreshadow...

**MARY MCLAGGEN IS NOT WHO YOU MOST LIKELY THINK SHE IS**

Things

1. Now if your thinking, 'a quill and a book, wow poor lily' you must be weird cuz honestly if there was a pen that changed into different types of pens and never ran out of ink, I would superty duper want it!! POOF, it's a sharpie POOF it has a light-up button, POOF it has a squishy handle! AWESOMEST PEN EVER

2. …. Shoot I don't have a number 2…

3. WOLF OUT!!!

4. (psst beta editor reader , don't edit this)

5. Beta Reader E, Toby is incredibly awesome and amazing and incredible and brilliant. Unfortunately when she edited this she was feeling a little bit lazy, so it's not perfect or anything, but hopefully Laura Wolf's, I mean, errr, my atrocious grammar is a little bit better! :) (real me - thanks E.)

WOLF OUT (again)


	12. It's A Very LONG Way Down

On the morning of the next day (a chilly and very foggy Saturday morning), Aeryn woke up shivering. At first she just thought it was just the cold, but when she discovered heaping layers of red and gold blankets were over her, it suddenly hit her:

The Quidditch match was today.

And she was filling in for the seeker.

And she was nearsighted (not seriously, but one does dwell on such problems at times such as now).

Aeryn sat up so suddenly that she became dizzy. After recovering, she cursed her bad luck this week. First, the problems with Lupin, then two of the best chasers, brothers Billiam and William Todd, got dragon flu, while the seeker, Kat Van Smeeling, had gotten a detention (something that was quite common for her). But normally when Kat was out, James would fill in as a seeker, for, even though he needed glasses, he was farsighted. But this time was different. Because they were missing two of their best chasers, James would have to stay chaser and she would have to be seeker.

"Oh no..." muttered Aeryn nervously, all of the troubles of the week making her feel less confident then usual.

"Aeryn?" she heard a tired voice from Lily's side of the room call.

"Yeah, what's up Lils?"

"You okay?" Lily yawned. "Its your big K-wit-ich game today, right?"

Aeryn let out a nervous chuckle. "K-wit-ich, really? Its Quidditch, and, yeah, I'm playing seeker because Kat's out today."

"Hmm...yeah, detention with Professor Baggleton, but doesn't King Prat the Toe-rag normally take her place?" said Lily as she got up and started choosing some Gryffindor clothes to show her support.

"Normally," started Aeryn miserably as she huddled up in her warm blankets, "But Bill and his nearly identical little brother, Will, have come down with dragon flu, so Ja—Potter is staying as the only chaser. This is going to take a miracle to win."

Lily turned around to where Aeryn was bundled in blankets and looking nervous. "Aww Aeryn, you look sort'a green, have you been thinking about Lupin?" she said kindly, just before she started changing.

Aeryn glared grumpily at bedroom window. "I was trying not to think of him. Besides, I'm mostly scared about being seeker. Merlin, the pressure…." She trailed off.

"Well," said Lily as she finished getting into gold and red winter robes, a scarf, and mittens, "I have good and bad news, the good is I know your going to be excellent at sneeker, I've seen your dives at that practice a fortnight ago and your were great. The bad news is…. Lupin is commentating on the match."

"WHAT!" exclaimed Aeryn as she jumped out of the bed so quickly that it might have been covered in nails.

"Heh heh...well now that you're out, you should get dressed so we can eat."

Aeryn collapsed on her bed for a second before dragging herself off and setting out to put on some clothes that she would eventually trade for her Quidditch uniform.

After eating a simple breakfast of toast, eggs, and pumpkin juice in the courtyard with Lily (they talked only about non-Lupin and non-Quidditch related topics), Aeryn separated and joined her team at the locker.

"Howdy Aeryn," greeted Reece Corbett, an African-British sixth year and Sirius's fellow beater, as Aeryn went to the girl's side of the locker room. Reece was the only other girl besides Kat, due to one of their old teammates (and old captain's girlfriend-Mai Montgomery) dropping out from NEWT pressure (though there were other theories about the old captain and Mai), and being replaced by the younger Todd brother, Will.

"Hey," Aeryn responded, as she went past Reece to her locker. After a moment of searching her locker, messily stuffed with a broom, goggles, and a broom care kit, she added, "Reece, Mai's old uniform isn't in here.

The exotic African-Brit with beautiful dark satin skin paused in the process of tying together her many dreadlocks. "I think Kyle Li got his sis to magically sew on you your name and number," declared Reece as she finished with her hair and went on to straightening her scarlet uniform, which had '43 Corbett' on the back in gold along with a gold collar, inside of the cloak, and sleeve cuffs.

"Ah! I'd better go get him, wish me luck," said Aeryn as she set off through the neutral part of the locker room to the guy's part to find their keeper.

Aeryn knocked on the door. "Hey Kyle, you got my uniform?" she yelled.

The door opened and James dominated the opening, only in pants and a giant smirk. "'ello, what's up Foxy?".

"Blehhguh," muttered Aeryn as she half face palmed and half covered her eyes.

"Sorry, Kyle only has your new uniform, not your blehhguh, come back later," said James teasingly as he pretended to shut the door, causing two laughing voices that sounded like Kyle and Sirius to go off behind him.

"Honestly, James… just get me the clothes," grumbled Aeryn.

"Rawr, feisty! Hey, Kyle, pass the lady's clothes over to James," a voice that sounded like Sirius said.

"Here you go," said Kyle's voice as a uniform sailed over James's head and right into Aeryn's hands.

"Hey you caught it, now go change and then catch that snitch for us, alright?" ordered James as he closed the door, not letting Aeryn answer.

"Men…" she muttered as she headed back and changed into her new uniform, complete with '18 O'Connell' on the back (18 was her lucky number).

When everyone was ready, they headed into the neutral locker room for James's pep talk.

James coughed rather loudly to shut everyone up, and then began in a uncharacteristically solemn voice.

"Okay ladies and not-so-gentle men, this is the big game. Crazy Kat's out again and Todd One and Todd Two (Will and Bill) are sick, so it's down to us."

"Damned dragon flu," Kyle muttered, as the half Chinese, half Japanese boy played with his shaggy red-dyed hair.

James nodded then continued, "Ok BadA$$ Beaters, your main objective is to protect me and smack those bloody Bludgers at the other chasers. Kyle, you and your sexy hair need to defend the goal like it's the only thing between scissors and your red locks. And Aeryn, well it's just you and the Hufflepuff seeker, Lance Ratliff, I'm sorry but we can't afford to spend resources on anything but points. And try not to get distracted from your objective, not that that'll be hard will all that fog," he finished, looking at Aeryn with extra concern.

"Right, g'luck everyone," said Aeryn nervously.

"Luck," replied Kyle, who was protectively patting his hair.

"Merlin be with us," mumbled Reece.

"Yippee! Let's go!" chipped in Sirius optimistically.

As they grabbed their brooms and waited for their team to be called, Aeryn listened to Remus announce the Hufflepuffs.

"…and here's the infamous black and yellow Hufflepuffs!" he said to many cheers.

"First we have Captain and Keeper Alice Collins, then Beaters Elva Leblanc and Pearlie Holloway, Chasers Virgil Beach, Martha Ramsey, and Ned Hodge, and lastly Seeker Lance Ratliff!" his voice echoed around the stadium, both torturous and dreamy to poor Aeryn.

Again the crowd went wild, so Remus had to clear his throat to announce the Gryffindors.

"Okay, now for the opposing team, let's hear it for the scarlet and gold, Gryffindor!"

The crowd, still going bonkers made Remus take a second before he could announce names.

"First we have Captain, and lone Chaser due to absence, James Potter!"

James put on his goggles then confidently strode out, broom in hand.

"Then their Keeper, Kyle Li!"

Off went the ginger Asian.

"Beaters Sirius Black and Reece Corbett!"

Both swaggered oh-so-coolly out, leaving only Aeryn.

"And lastly," his voice echoed in her head, "filling in for Kat Van Smeeling, Aeryn O'Connell!" He finished with a slightly nervous edge.

Taking a gulp of air, Aeryn put her goggles on, gripped her broom handle tightly, and followed the freshly trampled grass to where a group of yellow and black was facing scarlet and gold, Captains an the head, and referee Madame Hooch in the middle with a large box.

The crowd was hard to see because of the thick fog, but masses of red and yellow and a tiny bit of blue and green were still visible Nervously, Aeryn stared at the boy who was the opposing seeker, Lance Ratliff (if she had remembered correctly). He smiled and mouthed 'good luck', acting like he was one with the 'spirit of sportsmanship'.

Hooch blew her whistle to silence the cheering before announcing for the captains to shake hands. After that, she went through all the normal rules and regulations.

Finally she yelled, "Mount your brooms!" and the two teams followed like soldiers follow a general's orders: quickly and quietly.

Madame Hooch then released the balls into the air, throwing the Quaffle herself.

"And Potter gets the Quaffle—" was the last thing Aeryn heard before she zoomed up into the air.

The mist in the stadium was very thick, so the crowd only appeared as masses of different colors, the most prominent of the colors being yellow, black, scarlet, and gold.

She tried to keep her eyes focused on Ratliff, the other seeker, but then she faintly heard Remus announce the other team making a goal. Aeryn stopped circling the pitch to curse the other team for a second before realizing she had lost Ratliff's position. She looked around, but could see nothing more then mist and blobs of color; Remus's voice was hardly audible. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw a yellow figure gaining altitude.

Figuring It had to be Ratliff, Aeryn spun around then started climbing up into the even thicker mist above. Soon she was close enough to read the back of his uniform 'Ratliff 12', and could tell he was chasing something. It had to be the snitch. Minutes went past as the pair continued accenting, and Aeryn was just level with Ratliff, but the snitch was still too far.

Then, suddenly the little golden ball changed abruptly in direction and headed down. Over the roaring wind that started as they dived down to follow the ever changing course of the snitch, she heard Ratliff cursing. But after almost a minute of chasing it downward, the snitch disappeared into the mist completely.

Both Seekers pulled to a stop, and cursed their bad luck, they were higher then they had ever bothered going before during a game, and below them the snitch was probably buzzing around the players ears.

While Aeryn muttered curses at the snitch, taking a small rest beside the other seeker who looked equally exhausted, she did something that ended up being a very unwise decision.

She took one hand off the broom and rubbed her aching head. Now normally all Quidditch players are able to fly just fine one handed, or even no handed, and Aeryn wasn't an exception, but just then a very strong wind hit the Seekers, causing Ratliff to roll and Aeryn to be knocked from her broom.

Aeryn yelped once, alarmed, and before she was completely off, managed to grab the very tip of her broom. But it was no use-the broom was vertical now as they both started to plummet downwards, falling slightly slower because of the wind that had blown her off the broom in the first place.

She didn't scream or cry, but faced her fate with as much calmness as she could, still she wasn't ready to give up yet. Instinct told Aeryn to spread out as much as she could, something that probably saved her life. All of a sudden, a yellow figure swooped down and just barely managed to grab her free hand, and together they descended at a slow pace, Aeryn now only hanging from the hand of her savior.

"O'Connell! O'Connel can you hear me, you need to get on your broom!" Ratliff called.

Reality came back to Aeryn as she realized she was hanging in the middle of the air, the gloved hand of the Hufflepuff seeker the only thing stopping her from falling. His broom was descending ever so slightly from the weight, but Ratliff was managing it. In her other hand she realized she was somehow still gripping onto her broom.

"O'Connell?" Ratliff yelled, and she connected two and two together.

With strength that must have been that of her wolfish side, she tilted her broom horizontal with one hand, let go and swung onto the broom. For a second she dropped, but then managed to get control and hovered up to a very relieved Ratliff.

"Merlin's thong! Are you okay...errmm...Eri..."

"It's Aeryn," Aeryn said rather hoarsely, her throat being dry.

"Okay, Aeryn...I'm Lance."

"Errmmhhmm...thanks fer.. savin' me..." she said in-between harsh breathing as her adrenaline started to fade.

He nodded grimly, "I was so upset about losing it that I just barely managed to roll in order to absorb the wind when I heard you scream, after that, I just… just dived. I was scared went you stopped makin noise, but I got there in time...I guess..."

Aeryn grinned weakly and started to thank him again when something buzzed behind his head….

The snitch was back.

Now after nearly plummeting to her death, you would think catching a little golden ball would be the last of Aeryn concerns, but as soon as she saw it, the little bit of Seeker in her made her croak. "Snitch!"

Lance swiveled around and his jaw dropped. Then he looked back and yelled, "Ready?"

"Back to being enemies!" Aeryn yelled roughly as she joined him in the chase.

At first the little golden ball only made them turn and loop, but then, it began heading down with and ugly determination. Aeryn and Lance were neck to neck, there fingers stretched out to the same length, less then a foot away from the little winged devil.

All off a sudden beside her, Lance started coughing harshly, then he stopped in flight altogether. This surprised Aeryn so much that she turned her head to see what was wrong, but only ended up going faster. Smack! Aeryn's outstretched hand hit the snitch and closed, shocking her so much she tried stopping suddenly and had to roll so as to not fall off from the impact of stopping in mid dive. Then, even with the golden Snitch in her hand, she swiveled, and flew straight were Lance was having a horrible coughing fit.

"Lance, are you okay?" Aeryn called crushing the snitch in her hand as her grip tightened with worry.

"Yea—" but he was cut of by a cough. "Yeah...wait, why are you here, did you catch it?" he said, alarmed at her presence.

"What oh, wait...I caught it…?" Aeryn stuttered in confusion as she realized she had the golden ball in her hand.

"But you… I would be here if it wasn't for you… and then you coughed… I shouldn't.." she continued, then held out the ball… "it should be yours."

Lance chuckled. "Geez, it's just a game, keep it, you probably need it with only Potter as a Chaser. If it makes you feel better we might still win if you're down by 160 points, but I highly doubt it."

Aeryn nodded numbly, "Shall we?"

But Lance only replied by beginning a steady dive down to where the pitch hopefully was.

Soon the sound of cheering, and blobs of color were back.

"And Potter scores! It's now 350 to 230, a very high scoring game, with Gryffindor only 120 points behind. They can still win if their Seeker gets the Snitch! Unfortunately, the locations of the Seekers are currently unknown, but it was reported that a scream was heard…" came Remus's very worried voice from below.

Aeryn gained an extra burst of energy at his worry, and sped down into the pitch, were the mist was less thick.

"Ramsey's got the Quaffle and….. MERLIN'S BEARD, It's Aeryn… I mean O'Connell, with Ratliff trailing behind!"

Aeryn held out her sweating hand with a very battered Snitch inside.

"AND AER—I MEAN O'CONNELL HAS THE SNITCH, GRYFFINDOR GETS 150 POINTS, AND THEY WIN BY 30 POINTS!"

At this the already crazy scarlet and gold crowd went wild and all the Gryffindor players turned to their amateur Seeker in amazement.

"AERYN YOU DID IT!" hollered James as he flew over and gave her a hug, the beginning of what became a group hug as all the players joined in.

"Yeah but you scored all the points, 230 points James, Merlin's pants!" Aeryn managed to gasp, despite the fact that she was being smothered by her team.

"JA-MES, JA-MES!" Sirius started, and soon the team and even the crown started cheering (though Aeryn was sure Lily wasn't joining in).

Soon the team was ready, to haul James up on their shoulders, but he stopped them.

"Hold up guys I need to chat with our Seeker, go do your victory lap, and that's an order!"

"Aye!" they cheered and zoomed off, with Sirius in the lead, yelling "ALL HAIL JAMES!"

"Aeryn, I'm sorry I never told you 'bout Remus being the announcer, but all the Marauders are involved in Quidditch. I just wish you didn't have to find out by hearing."

"Well, actually Lily told me this morning…"

"Oh, good! I would thank her myself, but I'd get slapped, and besides, I still have something else to ask you…. Will you go to that Christmas dance with me, as friends?"

Aeryn's jaw dropped.

"As friends of course... I really like Lily, and even though I'm going to be neutral on this, I believe you like Remus, so: just as friends."

"Sure," Aeryn shrugged. Once she got over the shock, it wasn't a terrible notion after all.

"Uh-oh…" James said looking over Aeryn's shoulder.

Aeryn spun around to where James was looking, and saw Sirius heading towards Remus, smiling evilly….

"Damn! He must have heard!" James exclaimed, and they both spend towards Remus's podium, where he was talking to McGonagall.

"Sirius, NOOOOOOOO!" yelled Aeryn as she and James slammed into him just before he landed on the podium, causing Remus and McGonagall to jump in surprise, and James, Aeryn, and Sirius to crash into a convenient patch of sand.

On the ground, Aeryn got her self unstuck from the mass then pinned Sirius down.

"You…" she huffed, out of breath. "are…not to tell…Remus…and…we are...only..."

"Going as friends…" finished James who was lying next to his broom, looking relieved they had stopped it from being told to Remus by the King of Gossip (a.k.a. Sirius), where it could even have been announced to everybody by an voice amplifying charm.

"Oi, okay I'm sorry. Gerrroff now; everybody's staring." Aeryn looked up to see only the team, who had finished their second victory lap, staring down at them; everyone else in the stands was leaving.

Aeryn got off of Sirius, hopped on her thankfully unharmed broom, and flew up to the rest of the questioning team.

Aeryn put on her best smile, "Sorry, Sirius cracked a red head joke. I had to set him right."

The team laughed good-naturedly, Kyle the loudest, before Reece declared that they needed to get ready for the party.

Together they flew down to the locker room, were a slightly battered looking James and Sirius were waiting.

Before they went into there separate locker rooms, Aeryn called out to James a question that had just come to her. "Hey, I thought you said all the Marauders were involved! What about Peter?"

James laughed, and before slipping into the boy's locker replied, "I guess you haven't seen our team mascot yet! Well, Kyle's sis did _magic_ with that Lion suit."

Aeryn laughed as she went over to take a shower and get ready for the rest of the day. Peter in a lion costume...? _Bloody__Hilarious!_

Before entering the common room with the team, Aeryn found Lily, who had been waiting by the portrait (only to be scared off by James).

"Hey Aeryn! Great game, I'm looking forward to hearing 'bout your adventure!" greeted Lily.

"Thanks. Now Lily, I know your not a huge fan of the parties, and will turn in early, but I need to tell you something private, so can you either wait for me, or not murder me for waking you up? I like parties so I might be a little late," Aeryn finished with a slightly mischievous grin at the last part.

"Sure! I was planning on staying up and finishing my book, so I should be awake. Now, let's go, I need to make sure they aren't sneaking in any firewhisky."

Aeryn nodded, looking slightly worried at Lily's comment about the drinks.

The party was great. They were greeted by tons of confetti and banners depicting events, real and not real, from the game. The only one of Aeryn was of her sailing out of the mist, looking a lot less sweaty and tired then she had in real life.

After the music started and house elves went around with drinks, the players took turns describing the events. Many people were dumb-stuck by '23 Amazing Shots of the Lone Chaser, James Potter', 'Whacked a Chaser and a Beater Clean Off Their Broom' by Reece and Sirius, 'One Keeper vs Three Insane Chasers' by Kyle, and lastly, they were amazed by Lance's kindness in Aeryn's 'Almost Plummeted To My Death', which also sadly made Lily go into overprotective friend mode.

"Lily, for the last time, _I am perfectly fine_**!**" Aeryn said angrily over the loud music as she and Lily weaved between the sweaty dancing bodies. They passed by Peter, who was flirting with Zoey Li, Kyle's talented sister who's hair had a slightly (dyed) blue tint to it.

"I'm sorry Aeryn, but I have every right to be protective," defended Lily as she picked up two butterbeers in fancy glasses from a house elf. "You seem to get hurt like what, once a month?" she continued, making Aeryn gulp nervously as they headed towards a counter to rest at, "And now you nearly die from a stupid game."

"I wasn't going to die, you know very well they have a cushioning charm so people are never terribly hurt."

"Fine, whatever. Butterbeer?" offered Lily.

"Sorry, already had my fill of that," Aeryn tried to say casually as she grabbed a glass of pumpkin juice from the counter they had arrived at.

"Suit yourself," shrugged Lily, who sipped some of her own Butterbeer while setting the other one down.

"Good, no firewhisky of any sort." the prefect said approvingly.

But Aeryn hadn't heard her. Instead, she was glaring at Remus, who looked very scared as he was dragged to the dance floor by the accursed...**Mary McLaggen.**

After some pranking, pumpkin juice chugging contests, and partying (everything but dancing for Aeryn), Aeryn headed up to her dorm, were Lily had been for the last two hours.

As she entered her dorm, Lily teasingly called, "Shame on you young lady, its already midnight, much past your beddy time."

Aeryn yawned, "Nice to see you too," before going over to her bed and then laying down on it spreadeagled, too tired to change.

"Lily?"

"Yeah?"

"James asked me to the winter ball."

Beta Note: _Technically it's an "Unofficial Beta" Note, 'cause this beta hasn't written/posted enough to be an Official Fanfiction Beta. Unfortunately. But if you still want to see my incredibly awesome and probably really out of date profile (I don't remember the last time I read it) it's linked to somewhere on Laur-Laur's profile (I'm ElisabethMG, by the way. _ElisabethMG_. Remember it.). As for betaing notes, I apologise for the late update. The esteemed author send this to me like three months ago and I never got 'round to finishing the editing until I had loads of homework. Which is why the betaing might be better in the beginning and worse in the end-I got tired. Yawn. How much do you think I can add to the word count before I'm done? Hmm. Uh, yeah. Have I mentioned that narwhals are cool? 'Cause they are. Okay, now I really should be getting back to that aforementioned homework. Enjoy the chapter (it's one of my personal favorites-I love James's pep talk) and eat plenty of raspberries! Unless you're allergic to them! In which case don't eat raspberries!_

[ author rambles ]

wow i think my beta caught my rambling disorder, no offence Beta E-liz

annnnyway i just want to point out a few facts

firstly Aeryn is not badly nearsighted, she was overreacting from the pressure

secondly, tho many people (in story) refer to Aeyrn's yelp (as she falls off the broom) as a scream, it is a yelp, people normaly just dont say 'yelp'

anyway, im deciding to kidda make this a two part story, this part, which will end soon is kind of the slightly pointless but none the less introductory part that will make stuff make sense, while the next part will have a real (but small) plot behind it, so part 2 wont be til like forever, but the next few chappies of part one will be as sooon as pooosible.

I want to thank any readers, especially those who add the story to fav or add as a story alert thingy, i don't care much for reviews, but those make my day!

WOLF OUT!


	13. The Eventful Eve of Christmas

The Eventful Eve of Christmas

Lily was in a deep shock.

Aeryn had tried everything to get her out of it, she had yelled "JUST AS FRIENDS!" into Lily's ear, sang those annoying tunes about songs that never end (it's the song that never ends, it goes on and on my friend, and so on), and even shook her dazed friend so hardy Lily fell off the bed. Finally, after four minutes of failed attempts, Aeryn gripped her wand and used it to spray Lily with a stream of cold water, getting herself wet in the process. After another minute of no success, Aeryn collapsed on her bed in soggy cloths and contemplated taking her friend to the hospital wing. But just then, as if Aeryn's thought had somehow escaped and transferred over to Lily's brain, clicking the wake up button, Lily came out of her daze.

"Your… going with.. James….?" She repeated

"As a FRIEND!" Aeryn yelled unnecessarily loudly.

Lily's mouth turned into a little 'o', "ahh…ok… that's…. wait, why the hell am I wet?"

Aeryn shrugged and cast a spell to dry their cloths and beds, "You were out for five minuets, and cold water was plan D."

Lily nodded, yawned, then picked up the book she had been reading, which had been discarded during the shock ordeal, "I'm sorry for all the trouble, I was unsure how to react…" muttered Lily.

Aeryn smirked evilly, and then went to get ready for bed.

"I wonder," Aeryn cackled quietly, "if I had made her jealous when she didn't know it was only a friendly thing."

The weeks of winter went by quickly as snow plied up on the grand castle. All around the grounds, the Christmas committee attempted to put up decorations only to have them be changed into things such as dung bombs or live, wriggling bugs by the marauders (minus Lupin), just as fast.

Although the snowy wonderland the grounds had transformed into and the general Christmas spirit did much to cheer Aeryn's mood, snow almost seemed to literally melt around her every time she saw Remus being dragged off to play in the snow by his little girlfriend, McLaggen. But other then those potential disasters, the only change was that the winter ball had been rescheduled to Christmas Eve due Centaur predictions of a nasty Death Eater caused blizzard on its way to Hogwarts, which was probably intended to disrupt the festivities instead of real harm. Still with the Ball a day earlier, it only seemed to come faster…

"Aeryn I'm telling you, you really need to try on the dress! The Ball is tonight and if it doesn't fit tonight, then it'll be hard to fix it in time." Lily grumbled at her stubborn friend, whose back was currently turned, and attention completely absorbed in a book.

"But I'm at a good part…" mumbled Aeryn for the fiftieth time.

Lily let out an exasperated moan at the ceiling, then scorned, "If you had just come with me to pick out the darned thing we wouldn't have a problem! Now if you don't want to try on the dress robe at least let me help plan your hair and such!"

Aeryn let out a whine then made sob noises before admitting her defeat: "Fine let's get this torture over with real quick."

:) :) :) :) :P :)

But quick, it was not. At least by Aeryn's standards of how long getting ready for a Ball should take (though in Lily's credit Aeryn's stubbornness _was_ the main reason for the length). In the end they only managed to finish with fifteen minutes to spare before the Ball, which was used to go to meet their dates.

As she walked somewhat awkwardly due to the dress robes, Aeryn muttered about evil ways to get back at Lily, who she had decided to blame for the uncomfortable-ness of the dress.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, I will not let my date to the Ball go murdering my secret crush and my date's best friend, no matter how feminine she made you look" came a familiar voice as James took of his invisibility cloak, with something very different on his face.

Aeryn sighed at her friend, "Real flattering James, plus your 'crush' is no secret. Oh and by the way are, those new glasses?"

James grinned slyly, adjusted his glasses professionally, then nodded approvingly at Aeryn. Her black dress robes were simple, but elegant with sapphire blue embroidery; the whole thing going nicely with her long orange hair and bright blue eyes.

"But really Aeryn, you look great, I'd be surprised if Moony doesn't drop dead at the sight of you in that dress with your hair all down and pretty."

Aeryn bit her cheeks trying to hold back a blush. "Glad you like it, Lily's dress is almost the same but with emerald green embroidery and it's a bit shorter."

James perked up immediately, confirming Aeryn's suspicions that he would try to make up a mental image of his Lilykins.

"Anyway you don't look too bad yourself, the glasses suit you, but Lily would probably strangle you with that tie."

James self-consciously tightened his neon pink tie that stood out against his black dress robes and patted his hair which wasn't as 'windswept' as usual. Slightly downcast, "I like my tie…" was all he could mumble.

Aeryn chuckled then grabbed James's arm, "C'mon Glasses-Boy according to Lily all Slug Club members are required to dance to the first song, and since the giant slug himself invited me 'cause of Lils, we better not be late."

After a nod James followed her down the hall, hooking his arm around hers instead of being dragged, then voiced his thoughts aloud as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "Good then I'll have more time to explain my plan."

Aeryn just raised an eyebrow as they rushed towards where the Ball would take place; she had learned that James would reveal his plans when he was wanted, no sooner (unless a certain person with an L first name would ask, many plans had been unfolded due to that flaw).

As they stepped through the door to where the ball was supposed to take place, Aeryn found herself unprepared for the wonder. She knew they had stepped out of the castle, into some sort of sheltered area, but she hadn't imagined it to be a giant dome. Snow completely the dome except for certain areas, window they could be called, that melted the snow in order to provide a view of the pre-storm before the blizzard. The dome itself was at least twice as big as the great hall.

In the center was a large circular white dance floor with a stage for the band at one end and a little bar-like place where drinks were being severed, on the other side. Around the dance floor their appeared to be a white rose garden that filled the rest of the dome up. Little elegant tables and pathways were placed amongst the garden, so people could sit and eat when the food came. Suspended around the garden and above tables were little floating orbs of light that gave everything a golden glow. Christmas decorations were limited to a bundles of holy and mistletoe that floated about the gold orbs, a few medium sized trees wrapped in green and red ribbons, and a great orb over the dance floor that changed from green to red steadily, lighting up the dance floor with it's glow.

As they walked down a wider path to the area between the stage and the dance floor, where a huge mass of people gathered, neither could hold in their amazement.

"Heh, it's not hard to guess why they don't do this without funding…" James mumbled to himself.

Before they could look around and find familiar faces, Slughorn and a stranger walked up onto the stage, both wearing a terribly unflattering maroon dress robes and matching hats. After getting the crowds attention, they both used an amplifying charm on their voices so the loud mass of people Aeryn and James had just joined could hear him.

"Welcome, welcome to this years Winter Ball!" Slughorn boomed, then after several more minutes of speeches and introductions he and the man next to him, who happened to be the Winter Ball's sponsor and ex-slug club member, finally came to the part Aeryn had been fretting over.

"Now ladies and gentleman, the members of the slug club, will be honored with the first song of the night, afterward feel free to join in." said the sponsor.

"And don't forget, after the first dance, menus will be appearing on the table for you to order from, just request it, and you'll get it!" continued Slughorn who seemed perked up at the prospect of food.

Then the two men in the horrible maroon dress robes walked off the stage, and in their place a band appeared, rising from a trap door.

Feeling uncomforatble, Aeryn took her place with James on the dance floor among the other chosen "slugs". To soon the band started playing some sort of classical music, the dancers cue to start.

As they danced around the circular floor, Aeryn discovered James was a pretty good dancer, and like in all the books and movies she knew, it wasn't hard when your partner had a clue what to do.

"Wow James, not bad." said Aeryn approvingly as he twirled her around at exactly the same time as everyone else.

"Ehh, I took classes once, hoping to impress Lily, but I guess the wrong redhead was affected."

Aeryn nodded, but she was suddenly preoccupied by a certain person in the crowd and by her blush, James guessed it was Remus.

James searched around the dance floor for a certain someone he would like to blush at, but for some reason Lily wasn't around. Must be late, he though to himself.

As he twirled Aeryn again, in perfect time with the music, he was able to follow her gaze to Remus.

Remus, his shaggy gold hair ever messy, looked very uncomfortable in sliver dress robes. James knew the Remus only liked to wear brown dress robes, because it made him look Proffessor-y (this was not expressed verbally it was just obvious), and even when James had said differently he had refused to wear anything but at James's aunt's wedding. Though now, seeing Remus in those sliver robes, looking completely contradicting with his fancy but shaggy look , a mixture of bad hair and slightly shiny robes, James agreed. The robes obviously had not been Remus's idea and James had a feeling the devil in the red dress robes beside Remus might have had something to do with the sudden change in taste.

Still as the first song ended, and more people joined them for the second, including the werewolf in silver and his red-dressed girlfriend; James could also tell Aeryn didn't really notice how the silver robes clashed with Remus in general.

For a secondthet were distracted as some of the dancing crowd moved out of the way and Aeryn and James became witness to a truly amusing, and rather cute scene. Peter, in a somewhat unfashionable baby blue dress robes, was slow dancing to a nonexistent beat, with the Gryffindor Keeper Kyle's younger sister, Zoey Li.

Zoey, who was nearly head taller then her date, was looking lovely with her blue-black dyed hair up in an elegant bun asian-style and a matching dark blue dress robe that had a kimono style to it. Both of then looked very happy with each other, and were completely oblivious to the crowd, epically Kyle who was eyeing the couple suspiciously in his red suit that also matched his red hair. But what Aeryn, who didn't know much about the Li children, thought had to be the most amusing, was the fact that next to Kyle, a seventh year with spiky dark green-dyed hair, once again matching green dress robes, and a great resemblance to Zoey and Kyle, was also looking at the couple.

Aeryn, tryed not to laugh as she motioned over to the Li family, "Tell me the green guy is Kyle's older brother?" she asked.

"Yep, Jackson Li, he's a seventh year Hufflepuff. There was also a purple girl last year, Ravenclaw's Kendra Li, but she graduated."

Aeryn lifted her hand to her mouth to cover up her laughter, she just loved magical families.

After another song, James sighed and looked around for Lily but the floor was too crowded for him to be able to look around properly. After a last futile scan of the dance floor James gently nudged Aeryn to a less crowded area. It was time to explain his operation.

Aeryn titled her head to the side like a curious puppy, "Have something to say?"

James grinned slyly, signaling it as time for operation explaining.

"Okay Aeryn, its time for Operation Steal Remus And Lily Back, or for short Operation SRALB."

"How 'bout just 'the plan'" muttered Aeryn, but James continued anyway.

"Our objectives: to fix things up and get you and Remus together, and _hopefully_ me and Lily together,"

Aeryn covered a laugh with a cough.

"Okay the plan is this : I got the band to play a special song in about six or so songs, its this western american thing, quite silly really, known as "square dancing", which happens to include switching partners. Now not many people know how to do that properly, and even though the teachers will try and help them, their will be some confusion, enough so that you will get to be with Remus and me with Lily." James took a brake as he twirled Aeryn at the appropriate timing.

"Now, I got Sirius to sneak in a good ol' Spazzle Spark-Bomb, (sold exclusively at Zonko's), you know the kind that make a huge explosion of light and loud noise, but are completely harmless. When that happens, we'll ditch this party, go out into the school and be able to romantically embrace those who should be ours!" James finished dramatically.

Aeryn had a somewhat hopeful smile on her face, until a dark thought came to mind:

"but what if _they_ (by her expression she meant _Remus_) don't agree with this plan?"

James burst out with a laugh. "Honestly Aeryn, every second you aren't ogling at Remus, he's ogling at you, it's one huge ogle-feast from the point of view of an outsider!" James chuckled truthfully.

"But what about Lily?" Aeryn said quietly.

James sighed and dreamily looked up at the orb as its light changed from red to green.

"Well the Potter motto is 'try, try, and try again'"

Aeryn smirked, "I thought it was 'We make good pots""

James grinned, "you know, my invented motto is actually relatable to pot making, I would know since I have tried to make some pots with and without magic'

"Well if you were a good potter you would know the proper term for the making of pots is ceramics."

James stuck out his tongue, "you might have won this time, but James Ceramics-er will get cha one day!"

Aeryn rolled her eyes. "You said six or so songs right?, then maybe we should eat a quick bite first."

"Sounds proper. Anyway, I need to get to know the past of the person behind the lips my mate Remus will be snogging."

Aeryn just shook her head holding back a chuckle at his way of wording things.

"Likewise 'Ceramics-er', Likewise." she responded with air qoutes.

As the pair of schemers sat down, they simultaneously picked up the menus and scanned the continents.

James, who due to his wealth was a little more experienced at ordering so fancily, was first to request his meal, "I'll have the Phargk Steak, medium rare with Clam Chowder please." He said to no one in particular.

Not a second later a plate with a Snargk Steak and a bowl of clam chowder arrived, along with the proper silverware via house-elf magic.

"Oh and One.." he looked at Aeryn, mouthed 'butterbeer?', then continued when she nodded, "I mean two, butterbeers."

Two butterbears appeared.

"Uh… I'll also have the Snargk Steak, but …uhh… rare…(this caused James to grin knowingly) and potatoes, yeah mashed potatoes." Sure enough the requested order appeared.

"Cool." said Aeryn, who wasn't used to such fancy ordering due to her family being more middleclass.

"So," started James, "will this be your first kiss?"

Aeryn gave him a quick glare. "No. Fourth."

"and the luck men-"

Aeryn cut him off, "Once when I was like eight, you know the innocent copy adult kind on Valentines Day, and two more with different short term boyfriends I had at a summer camp for magical outcasts two summers ago, happy now?"

"Magical outcasts? What made them so…? I mean I know why you…"

Aeryn felt awkward discussing it with James, but she continued, "One literally drank a whole bottle of Skele Gro when he was little, now he has giant bones, and people often think he's part giant. The other accidentally fell victim to a Polyjuice potion that had the scales of a venomous snake, now only a weekly potion prevents him from becoming fully scaled."

James eyes had widened slightly, "Wow that's… kinda crazy…"

Aeryn was quick to change the subject, "And you, why don't you try and estimate the last couple digits of the number of girls you snogged, Jamesie boy?

"Ha ha." said James, "Its only a few mind you. Not to mention that the second one was against my will."

Aeryn gave him a 'yeah right' look.

James sighed, and then finally said overly dramaticly, "Well I guess you had to find out eventually, but the first one was Lily, four years ago, today."

Aeryn gapped. "no… wait… yes… that makes sense… ahh its all clear now…" Aeryn muttered to herself.

"I believe you" she sighed, "It explains so much. Not to mention you might have a chance with her now, ehh?"

"Doubtfully, the second one I told you about, it was the next day."

Aeryn let out a small 'ohhh' of understanding, and they had a small awkward silence.

"This is the fifth song" James said, breaking the quietness between them.

Aeryn nodded and looked around trying to spot Remus. Finally she found him, but instead of dancing, the accursed Mary McLaggen was dragging him out of the dome…

"James chan-" she started, but James was to quick.

"Changes of plans!" he said as he stood up abruptly.

Aeryn gave him a confused glance, then followed his view.

It was one of Lily's ex-friends, dancing with her boyfriend Edger. As if on cue, cheating boyfriend kissed the girl he shouldn't have been with. James and Aeryn simultaneously let out a string of foul curses.

Aeryn grabbed James hand then gave it an urgent squeeze, "you need to find Lily" she said her gaze boring into his, all humor erased.

James nodded dutifully.

"I need to go get Remus", she told him, motioning over to the door where Remus's foot had disappeared behind.

They exchanged a nod then urgently made there way towards the dome entrance and exit; Aeryn ditching her uncomfortable shoes in a bush shaped like a platypus along the way.

Barefooted from ditching her shoes, Aeryn dashed down the hallway she could have sworn to have heard a voice from. A minute ago James had gone down a separate hallway on his search for Lily, so now she was all alone. After following the hallway all the way to the end, she came to a fork.

"Damit! Which way did she go!" Aeryn exclaimed.

Cautiously, she started down the right fork, but paused when she heard a confused voice.

"Aeryn?" a familiar voice came from the left fork.

Aeryn perked up immediately and ran toward the voice. Remus was sitting next to a statue, his legs tried up, in only his under cloths. He definitely looked like a person who just got mugged.

"Aeryn!" Remus said, his face lighting up at how wonderful she looked in the dress robes.

"you look amaz—" he tried to continue, but Aeryn was already on her knee leaning towards him. His lips brushed against hers and everything in the word felt right. Both of them only thinking about why they hadn't kissed sooner, like that time in the hallway on Halloween. But after a few seconds Remus pulled back, making Aeryn think something had gone wrong.

"Oh Merlin.. I never asked… I'm sor—" Aeryn started but she was interrupted by the gaze of Remus's eyes.

"Relax Aeryn, I just thought it would be much better if my hands and legs were untied, no?"

Aeryn chuckled nervously, then pulled out her wand from a special pocket and undid the bonds.

"Merlin that's much better." murmured Remus as he got up, pulling Aeryn up with him.

Aeryn smiled as she brushed his hair of out his face and as she was about to lean in for anther kiss, she realized something rather embarrassing.

"Remus! Your cloths! That banshee took your dress robes!"

Faces bright red, they quickly shuffled out of the embrace.

"Right, err this is embarrassing…" Remus muttered trying to straiten out his white under shirt.

"Here" said Aeryn as she waved her wand and conjured a white sheet.

Without hesitation Remus tied it around his waist.

"Great I look like some roman guy now." He muttered.

"Well then c'mon Remulus, lets look for those dress robes of yours!" Aeryn exclaimed as she grabbed his hand, leading them as they ran (awkwardly for Remus in his skirt) down the hall.

:) :) :) :) :) :)

Sirius had been cruising the halls alone. He knew he should have been at the dance for Operation SRALB, but the Winter Ball reminded him to much of the Pureblood parties he loathed, and after dancing with the first swarm of girls, he ditched it and started wandering the halls, still in his black dress robes, with a sliver and dark gray checkered tie. As he was about to turn a corner, he overheard two people talking, then the sound of snogging. After making a slightly disturbed expression, he took a peek, and to his delight(for his friends)/disgust(how awkward!) he discover Aeryn and Remus. Silently chuckling at how successful that part of James plan had been, without even his help, Sirius turned back.

After walking down a few more halls, to his great displeasure he found himself near the dungeons. About to turn back, he suddenly froze as he heard heavy breathing, then a choking sound, around a corner that led to the dungeons. He paused, he knew from bad experience that it could be snogging or worse, since after all, these were the dungeons, but when he heard a cough that ended in a choke, he cautiously approached.

As soon as he turned the corner he knew he had been smart to approach. On her knees, a girl, battered and bruised, cloths ripped, was leaning against the wall trying to get up. A small trail of blood was behind her and on the wall, but she still kept trying to move. As Sirius saw her, he froze. The girl tried to get away, but she only ended up coughing out a bit of blood.

After recovering Sirius rushed up, pestering her with the pointless questions that sprung onto his tongue, "Are you ok? What happened?"

In response girl pushed him away with a surprising amount of force, and only when he recovered he realized it was none other then Iris Selwyn.

"Merlin! You need to go to a hospital wing!" he told her, approaching with more caution so he wouldn't get pushed again.

Her light brown eyes, one of which was blackened, became worried, "Can't." she managed to croak.

"Screw it you're going, you're losing a lot of blood, you could die or something!" he yelled a little too loudly and hysterically.

From somewhere far away he heard a voice that sent shivers up his spin with recognization. He couldn't understand it well, something about 'come here', 'or else' and 'I'll tell' and a lot of foul langue, but the owner or the voice was all to obvious, Derrick Umbridge, also know as the Orge.

Somewhere in his mind, he could hear 'Detective Sirius, reporting for duty' but he was completely oblivious to it as he went about his job.

First he conjured an rough half cylinder that was hollowed out, almost like a canoe

And used magic to lift the unwilling injured girl into it, then magic to lift the canoe-thing itself, and get that moving. It was hard going, and for a while Iris tried to get out, forcing him to stop, use magic to get her in, and ramble about how bad she was injured. After what seemed like weeks, Sirius and his boat like thing with its passenger arrived at the hospital wing. After setting Iris down, who was glaring at him suspiciously beneath her bruises, Sirius Banged on the door.

"MADAME HELEN, MADAME POFERY, LET ME IN!" he roared.

"I'm sorry we're out of birth control potions, come back later!" came Pomfery's squeaky voice.

"DAMNIT! THIS IS AN EMERANCY LET ME IN!" Sirius yelled again.

Sirius hear a gasp and mumbling about 'something exciting happening while Helen partied' And finally opened the door, with Pomfery peeking in so as not to reveal her pok-a-dot nightdress. After gazing confused at Sirius's wild expression, and the canoe, Iris's condition finally hit her.

"Oh my.. oh my merlin…" she mumbled constantly as she opened the door completely and used magic to take Iris and the canoe out of the doorway and into the hospital wing. Then she carefully lifted Iris, who was now limp and looked to be slipping out of consciousness and put her hand on the curtain about to close it.

"What happened?" Pomfrey asked, her voice slightly wavering.

Sirius remembered the deep look of worry in Iris's eyes, he remembered the Orge warnings as he yelled angrily.

Then with a last look at the beaten body of Iris, he lied "I don't have the slightest idea."

Iris made a weak attempt to face him, and then gave him a look that said everything: don't tell anyone, but thank you anyway.

"But just in case," he added "We should keep this quiet… I think you know what I mean." he said to Pomfrey seriously.

She nodded then closed the curtain.

Sirius, feeling awkward just standing in the doorway starting at the curtain, invited himself in and sat on the bed across from hers. He silently gazed out the window, at the storm, which could hardly be made out due to the darkness of the night. What now, Detective Sirius? He asked himself.

:) :) :) :) :) :)

As they walked around, Aeryn decided to make conversation.

"So.. err was that your first, you know kiss, or did McLaggen beat me?" Aeryn asked nervously.

"Sorry Aeryn, it wasn't.." Remus said guiltily

"S'okay, wasn't mine either.." mumbled Aeryn.

The had a small awkward silence interrupted by Remus.

"God I've never met a woman so demanding," muttered Remus, "McLaggen I mean." he added at Aeryn's look.

Aeryn chuckled, "Good catch, I was afraid you were talking 'bout me."

Remus stopped Aeryn and looked at her, "Are you kidding, I never knew woman could be so clever before I met you." He said with a smile.

"Yeah? Well I never knew a man could be handsome, a great kisser AND smart, 'til I met you!"

"Stereotype-er!" accused Remus with mock horror.

"Guilty as charged" said Aeryn as she leaned towards Remus.

"As a judge, you should show me the light," she added before Remus met her lips half way.

Then, right before they could zone away into their realms of happiness created by the kiss, a voice interrupted them, causing them to separate in alarm.

"I always knew it! Remus and OC! Maria owes me that bottle of wine on the sixth-floor corridor" said the voice which happened to belong to a painting of a lady in Victorian style clothing.

"I'm sorry, knew _what_?" asked Aeryn, who was quite confused because the Lady in the picture was clearly talking to the couple.

Before the slightly hyperactive painting could begain, Remus inturupted, "I believe that's Kennadra, one of the paintings in the 'marauder fan club', she and a few others helped us fine some of the hidden passage ways they've known for decades."

"Oh hoho! So smart! You were always one of my favorites, I lost my frame at the dome from a bet when you snogged McLaggen, I'm surely glad that's over."

"Oh my my!" continued Kennadra, "Remus is without his robes, I suspect that means I win my other bet!"

"What other be—Oh…" Remus said as they both turned bright red.

"N-no, its not that," stuttered Aeryn with embarrassment, "Mar—Mclaggen, Stole Remus's over cloths and tyed him up, soon after she ran off… planning to return I guess" finished Aeryn with a shiver.

"Anyway, Aeryn got there in time and now we're looking for them." added Remus as he patted Aeryn on the shoulder.

"Aha! That would be why I saw the she-devil running, I had thought it was disappointment from being dumped by you!" said the painting

"So you know where his cloths are?" asked Aeryn

"Yep! Though I don't know why you would need them! Anyway, you at least won me one bet, so I'll show you the way!" she yelped with excitement.

After motioning for them to follow, Kennadra set off, going from picture to picture, with Remus and Aeryn following awkwardly due to her dress and his makeshift 'skirt'.

"Here we go!" She said at last, "In that suit of armor!"

Remus and Aeryn cautiously approached the suit of armor. As soon as they got close enough a Christmas carol began to play from the suit, but muffled from an object inside.

"Here we go." mumbled Remus as he retrieved his cloths. Then, out of pure habit and manners, Aeryn turned around, waiting as he dressed.

"Okay I'm presentable." muttered Remus as he gingerly buttoned his silver shirt, the sliver jacket-part of the dress robes he disliked draped over his arm.

"hawt…" mumbled Aeryn.

"Are you kidding, this silver makes me look weird!" stated Remus.

Aeryn shook her head. "Really. Hawt."

Both smiling they leaned in for a quick kiss, kreepy Kennadra 'aww'-ing in the background.

:) :) 3 :) :)((**( Author's Quick Note: Kennadra, being a creeper much? Kennadra's Hyperactive Note: Ohh yess yess!)))**

James headed to the spot he had a feeling he would findLily at. He remembers so many years ago, on Christmas, a downcast Sirius reporting to have found Lily behind a tapestry in a hidden room. Just last year he remembered passing it by, (a habit he had developed as a punishment to himself for his dire mistake years ago), and he had heard Lily again in tears, soon after he discovered her 'friends' had betrayed her.

The journey to the tapestry was quick and he arrived only minutes after he had seen the foul cockroach of a… well he would leave it at that for lack of a fitting curse word (But back to the point.) Being careful not to be heard James sat himself outside the tapestry, against the opposite wall. From the other side of the tapestry he heard Lily sniffing, sounding as if she had just finished crying.

Shouldn't be long, thought James as he pulled his knees up then rested his head. Not a second latter James drifted into a quick two minute snooze.

As Lily finally recovered from the betrayal, and deemed herself presentable she brushed aside the tapestry, only to slip backwards onto the floor in shock of the sleeping sentinel 'guarding' her spot.

"James?" she yelped in confusion as she hit the floor.

"Whahh?" exclaimed James in surprise as he suddenly awoke from his slumber, glasses askew.

Lily sat up, "Merlin! What's on your face!" she exclaimed.

James straightened his glasses, "I've been needn' them for a while, mum sent them in, this morning" he said just after shaking himself awake.

Lily tried to hide it, but they really brought out his hazel eyes, causing her to stare.

"Anyway..;" started James as he got up, unruffled his dress robes and walked over to were Lily had fallen, "Need a hand?" he asked leaning over her with his hand out.

Lily, still a little perplexed by the situation of James with glasses, stared up and grabbed something else instead.

"What. Is. _This_." Lily said, giving his neon pink tie she was gripping a tug for every word.

James hit himself on the head then wrestled her hand away from his tie, "Aeryn was right about you hating it… I knew I should have worn the red." He muttered as he pulled her up.

Lily dusted herself off then commented. "No, I don't hate it, I think its very you." she said truthfully with a shrug.

James perked up like Slughorn had at the mention of food. "gosh really? Haha!"

Lily sighed as James did a small victory dance.

After letting have his fun as he danced around (once he tried to get her to join in.. yeah you guessed it, it didn't work), Lily bluntly decided to question his presence, "Why are you here Ja—Potter" she said with authority.

James stopped in mid dance then looked off into the distance.

"I saw him." He said simply.

"ohh…" Lily said sadly, as she looked down.

Before he could stop himself James wrapped his arms around Lily in a big hug. To both parties' surprise (mostly Lily's) she didn't even react. They stood like that for a bit, the silence bringing comfort, intill James interrupted it.

"Merlin Lily, your beautiful, times that by five tonight."

"I thought you hated math." mumbled Lily into his shirt.

"Obviously I like _anything_ when you're included, positively of course, I hate your pain."

Lily leaned back and looked into his hazel eyes, "has anyone ever told you, when your not being James, King Prat, the biggest git in the world, you can be nice?"

James started cracking up so much he had to break the hug.

"Merlin Lily, I doubt anyone has ever put it _that_ way." Then he straightened up and looked back into her emerald eyes, "But I think that's the first time it's ever meant something."

Lily smiled, taking in the moment; then she decided the silly heartfelt stuff was done: "Now, you better do something impressive quick, Merlin knows why I'm being so nice, but how long it will last, is still a mystery."

"Yes Ma'am" replied James playfully with a salute, "I have just the place!"

:) :) :) :) :) 3 :) :) :) :) :) :)

"If you don't mind Remus, I think I'm going to take of some of the magical cover up I put on 'cause I couldn't let Lily get freaked about the wolfy scars. Afterward, I'd kinda like to go the laundry room, the one on the seventh floor, I put in a load yesterday of normal cloths, it should be clean by now." said Aeryn as they rested on a random bench.

"You, sure? You look really look lovely in that dress." said Remus as he watched the scars slowly start to appear. Just as looking at his own bite on his arm sent tingles up his spine, and seeing Aeryn's bite had the same exact effect, along with the jagged claw marks on her other shoulder she had gotten when she was grabbed from behind by the beast. Still some of the other scars, like the faint parallel ones on her cheek, and the small parallel ones on her nose, (scars she had to pass off as 'hiking accidents' to Lily) looked so…so Aeryn-ish to him.

As Aeryn removed a couple hair clips (it took more then one) that had been holding back her bangs, and threw them at the wall, Remus gently traced the scar on her cheek.

"hmph… you'll look lovely either way" he said quietly.

Aeryn gave him an amused expression as a hair clip hit the ground, then said with mock-anger, "and it took you that long to realize?"

Remus chuckled then stood up, pulling her with him, "Come on, I want to get some new cloths too, though I hope I'll still look 'hawt'" he said, air quotes around 'hawt' included.

Aeryn blushed a bit as they headed towards the many confusing stairs of Hogwarts, "if it helps, just keep it in you head that your always hawt, dear Moony."

"Aww shucks, thanks Foxy." replied Remus, causing Aeryn to start laughing so hard she almost fell.

"Ohh… Geezz… you… just… said that!" she wheezed with laughter.

Remus gave her a clueless look to why it was so funny, not getting how completely odd it was to hear Remus use James and Sirius's teasing nickname for her 'Foxy' (which of course was made doubly hilarious due to the actually meaning of 'foxy').

After she recovered and they barely made in on to a fast moving stairway, Aeryn gave him a warning, "Never call me that during a serious moment, I may burst out laughing again."

Remus rolled his eyes, "Sure" he muttered.

After Aeryn and Remus took a visit laundry room, were Aeryn picked out a comfy red and green striped Christmas sweater, a gray hooded jacket, and a pair of dark wash jeans, while Remus choose a green tee, a brown fleece jacket and kaki cargo shorts, they separated into different class rooms to change. Then after putting their dress robes into the bags full of clean cloths the set off down the seventh-floor corridor.

Aeryn glanced at Remus, "Geezz to you make kaki look good."

Remus chuckled, "Same to you with sweaters. But speaking of looking good, I really think we should have started this dating thing sooner, I don't think I've ever had more complements in a month then you've given me tonight!"

Aeryn raised an eyebrow "So were doing a dating thing, eh, not just a snogging and cheating on McLaggen thing?"

Remus made a face at the mention of his ex, "By my standards she broke up with me the minute I woke up and found myself bound, so it's definitely a dating thing were doing."

Aeryn grinned broadly, happier then she had been all year, but Remus couldn't help thinking how nice it would be if they could go on some sort of date, something to finalize their relationship, after all, the kissing and complimenting was nice, but he realy didn't know as much as he might have wanted to about his girlfriend. It was always 'werewolf this, marauders that'.

"Hey look Remus, It's a thingy with trolls trying to do ballet, god I want one of those in my room!" said Aeryn as they passed by a tapestry with dancing trolls. Remus didn't really hear her, he was thinking about the fantasy date, it would be nice if they could have a good talk, somewhere quiet, maybe a library… It seemed a bit nerdy of a place, but he knew despite her wild trickster personality she had with James and his crew, she was also a big reader.

"BLOODY HELL!" exclaimed Aeryn as she stopped suddenly from surprise, "Remus that door just appeared out of nowhere and there is a bloody neon sign flashing and pointing with the words "Aeryn and Remus, Please come in."

Remus stopped in alarm just after Aeryn and looked up at the door and sign.

"I think it wants us to go in…"

"Well duh! But why the hell did it just like pop up their!" exclaimed Aeryn, who was suspicious of the door.

"I don't know, but I kind of want to check something out, just a feeling I have."

Remus opened the door, causing Aeryn to step back a bit. A maze of bookcases towered over and surronded a big comfy couch that had two Small TV dinner trays that were sadly without food. Slightly antique lights hung from the ceiling, shining on the earthy color pallet of the room

"Blimey… I think I like random doors now…" said Aeryn as she looked in.

"Yeah no kidding.." mumbled Remus, it was just like the date he had wanted, just without the food.

As Aeryn walked in a few pillows appeared on the couch, causing her to jump nearly ten feet, then finally realizing it was harmless, she sat down on the couch.

"Hey Remus come on in, this is great!" she said, relaxing on the long couch, admiring a few book spines.

"Give me a second," said Remus before he called an old friend.

There was a poof then a loud "YES MASTA!" from a rather tall and skinny greenish house elf, with extremely large ears, a long nose, a good amount of facial and ear tuff hair, not to mention weird fangs that were long enough to show even when his mouth was closed.

"Blimey, Fango! muttered Remus as he jumped in surprise. "You know you don't have to have to call be Master!" Remus added to the elf who was straightening his nice towel outfit and brown vest leather (something he still had from when his old masters kicked him out for looking too 'scary')

"Whatever you say masta! Fango is here to service you!" replied Fango happily.

"Well, I was wondering if you could get some snacks for me and my err… girlfriend, Maybe like a six-pack of butterbeer, Klue's Extra Poppy Popcorn and some turkey sandwiches, that is if you can spare the time…" he trailed off.

"No problemo master! Fango is happy to serve nice masta who helped him clean up party at Red-And-Gold-Masta-Hangout-Room (common room)! Plus no more are people eating at Cut-In-Half-Ball (the dome), so it is simple taska!"

Then Fango peeked in at Aeryn, who was still admiring the room. "You have a pretty girlfriend masta! She smell like you!" he added, blue eyes wide, before poofing off to get the food.

Smells like me? Why would she, from the snogging earlier? But we had clean cloths…, thought Remus as he looked at the spot the elf had disappeared at. Finally he realized the elf must have been referring to their 'furry little problem' as James called it. "Foods coming!" Remus said as he plopped down on the couch next to Aeryn.

"Sweet. So, what now, exploring this place, or talking, because I'd rather like to talk soon." she said happily as she leaned her head on his shoulder.

"Talk as we snack." Remus said cheerfully as the food appeared on their table via Fango's magic.

:P :P :P :P :P :P :) 3

"Prepare to be, AMAZED!" exclaimed James as he stood on top of a statue (something Lily was not happy about because it broke Hogwarts rule 262) of a unicorn, who's back he had clambered up on, then pulled down a trap door and latter.

"Wow?" said Lily without humor.

"C'mon, just climb on up and see!" said James as he made his way up the latter.

"Potter I am not going to climb on school property, it breaks rule—"

"Rule 269 yeah, yeah."

"No rule 262!"

"Whatever, now just get up here!" muttered James as he stuck his head out the trap door to talk to her.

"James I already said I wouldn't break the rules!"

"Oh please, this thing has been here since the beginning of Hogwarts, the rules don't touch it. Anyway, you deserve to see something nice after the crap you've been through."

Lily let out an angry sigh, "Whatever I'll check out, as a perfect I should know about all your hiding places."

"That's the spirit!" cheered James as she started to climb up.

"Oh shut up, this better be worth it."

James just cackled.

"Blimey.." mutterer Lily as she looked around. After climbing up the latter and into the trap door she found herself in a mini version of the Winter Ball's dome. It was small, about the size of a car, with a low roof neither of them could stand up in, but still extremely dazzling despite it's size.

James's, who wand was lighting up the dome moved around, looking for something.

"This would have been much better," he mumbled, "if there hadn't been that damn blizzard."

"So was the dome always here?" asked Lily as she stared up at the white snow all around.

"Nope, it's a trap door to the roof, but Peter knows a guy, who knows a guy, who has an uncle and that guy set up the dome, so for no cost he set this up to, as a favor due to some family debt."

"Wow, I hope you thanked Peter, this is quite fantastic…" muttered Lily.

"Yep. Anyway I was planning on telling our other lovebirds about it, but I never had the time."

"Other lovebirds?" Lily asked, "Who are you talking about and what do you mean by 'other'?"

James got a picnic basket from a darker part of the dome, "Other as in not Peter and his lovely friend, but our good friends Aeryn and Remus, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I—"

"ok I get it. Anyway, doesn't Remus has that other awful girl…. Um...Mary, right?"

"Oh please, Remus and Aeryn kept staring at each other the whole dance, I had to put my plan into act, for the good of the pedestrians who disapprove of Public Display of Affection!"

"Plan?"

James grinned "Yep, I had an genius plan to get them together, but McLaggen ruined it, hopefully Aeryn can fix it though."

"Hmmm, James using his powers for good, I'm suspicious."

James sat down and rummaged through the picnic basket, "I can be a good person you know; I'm not always a 'toe rag'."

Lily sat down, "Obviously, Potter, and that side of you is brilliant, but I absolutely can't stand the other part, the part that you almost always embrace."

James froze, "Did you just call me brilliant?"

"No I called the little boy who is rather clumsy, watches too many muggle movies and thinks he can get a girl by knocking down her books then helping her up, _right _under mistletoe; brilliant." said Lily with a sigh.

"Wait, you figured out that was a plan?" said James, "jeez, all these years I though it worked!"

Lily sighed, "Honestly James, you can be so dull, that was the most cliche move in the book."

"So were does that leave us..." muttered James

"Oh Merlin I don't know, but getting over him (meaning cheater-head Ed) is going to be a pain, I thought that wanker might actually make me forget." She said, putting her head in her hands.

"If it helps, I'll try to deflate my head a bit, and then maybe if you learn how to stand me, you won't have to forget." said James hopefully as he patted her on the back.

"I don't know… I don't know if it could work…" muttered Lily.

Then she did something she never, not even if all the Death Eaters in the world dropped dead, thought she could do, she craned her neck and lightly kissed him on the cheek, "But I guess ill try for that thick-skulled little boy who thought the book thing would work."

James who was in full shock by the impossible event, just nodded, hardly in this world.

"err.. that would.. be nice…" he mumbled dreamily.

Lily just sighed and grabbed the pumpkin pastry out of his hand and took a bite, "Merlin James, the least you could do is feed me, I'm starving, plus getting cheated on really stinks, I need junk food." She said trying to break the ice with humor while chewing.

"duh," James managed to say through his confusion.

:) :) :) :O :) :) :)

As she walked towards the common room, Aeryn supported her exhausted boyfriend, who had been completely wiped out after the chase in the maze.

"Ungg… too many butterbeers…" she mumbled, "Why… can't he carry… me…! Darn alcohol intolerance… I only… had four…"

As the wobbly couple slowly moved throughout the castle, they got a few stares from people who had decided to leave the Ball early.

Then, after getting confused on particularly tricky stairs twice, taking three secret passage ways and almost going into the boy's bathroom, they finally arrived into common room.

After resting on the couch, a slightly tipsy Aeryn almost literally dragged her half-asleep werewolf up to his dorm.

Finally once she entered the room, Aeryn dragged Remus onto a random bed (that happen to be Sirius's) then flopped herself on another random bed (which happened to be Remus's). After a minute of trying to get up, Aeryn eventually gave away to the sleep that had started tugging on her since she dropped the load (Remus).

Five minutes later the door opened, creaking loud enough that Aeryn was shaken from her sleep. She lifted her head enough so she could se the two silhouettes in the doorway.

"G'night Lily, sleep well knowing I'll make that filthy ex of yours pay." said the taller one that had James's voice.

Lily, the shorted figure stood on her toes and… gave James a quick kiss on the lips.(this caused Aeryn to doubt her throbbing head)

Aeryn was so confused/happy she barely heard the "'Night James." Lily had said as she left the doorway, leaving James completely stunned.

"Dear Merlin, I'll never understand women…" Was the last thing Aeryn heard James said before she fell back asleep.

As James wandered over to his bed, which was next to Sirius's, he realized: a) whoever was in Sirius's bed wasn't Sirius because there was no loud snoring and b) the person unconscious in Remus's bed had bright orange hair..

James chuckled as he investigated the werewolf couple who were passed out on other people beds. For a second he contemplated waking them, but a mental image of Aeryn and remus sleep-werewolf-attacking the life out of him stopped him in his tracks.

"Hopefully Sirius won't mind." he whispered to himself

[][][][][][][][][][][]

Sirius lay down on the bed across from the injured Slytheirn. Not even the slightest bit tired for fear he would get nightmare about not having found Iris in time, he stared at the clock watching as it turning to midnight.

Bored, Sirius began to celebrate his birthday with a quick song, "_Happy birthday to me, happy birth day to me, happy birth day dear Sirius, happy birthday to—_"

"Can you be quiet?" mumbled a weak, tired voice from Iris's bed.

* * *

(my rambles)

Reminder :

Pie is good

Oh, and keep in mind, a lot of that story overlapped. Yup.

Well this part of the story is coming to a fold folks, only a few more chapters til I finish 'part 1' of this thing, a) because I need a break for other stories I think in my thinky head and b) because I only have _no_ ideas for what happens after this… heheh bad excuses but such is LIFE!

- sorry about the wait but I sent this to my beta months ago, it got lost in the mail, school swept us away, and I just got a hair cut. Anyway thx to the inspiring comments and such (someone was planning to eat me!) and a story update from a friend who has long gaps between chapters like me, I was inspired to edit it myself, so sorry for errors.

Well because it seems to be my signature,

WOLF OUT


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